


Subjectivity of Happy Endings

by masked



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: deancasbigbang, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2014, Dragon Castiel, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masked/pseuds/masked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King Dean Winchester is on a quest to find and rescue a princess and/or a Damsel in Distress. As if Dean’s life isn’t complicated enough in that he has to seek out a complete stranger to rescue and marry (<i>seriously</i>), he almost literally stumbles upon a hurt dragon, who ends up travelling with Dean after few, uh… bonding moments. </p><p>Despite all the struggle inbetween, Dean is set on completing the quest to find his potential partner and achieve his Happily Ever After, and being accompanied by a dragon along the way (who's a little weird, but Dean’s been with worse company) surely can’t hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Dean Embarks On an Unwilling Quest

**Author's Note:**

> [art masterlist](http://hamburgergod.tumblr.com/post/100889578718/grandle-drawings-i-did-for-sallys-dcbb)
> 
> Art by [grandle](http://grandle.tumblr.com/), who is amazing and fantastic. This was my first DCBB run, and she spoiled me rotten with her gorgeous art pieces and understanding my tardiness and by generally being an awesome person. She and her art gave me so much encouragement the whole time, and knowing that at least one person enjoyed my story helped me keep going all the way to the finish line.
> 
> Thank you to [Alicia](http://huntingthehaggis.tumblr.com), who stuck by the whole time from pumping out my first draft to betaing it to continually giving me support to always being so enthusiastic about reading my writing. Without her, this fic wouldn't exist.
> 
> Special thanks to [this person](http://bowleggreeneyedhunter.tumblr.com), [Morgan](http://morganeilish.tumblr.com), [Wish](http://inthebackoftheimpala.tumblr.com), [Jess](http://deanhugchester.tumblr.com/), [Lis](http://clotpoleofthelord.tumblr.com/) and everyone who continuously helped and encouraged and pushed me further when I thought I'd reached my limit.
> 
> written for [DCBB 2014](http://deancasbigbang.livejournal.com).

Go on a quest, they said. It’d be fun, they said.

Go rescue a princess to marry since kingdoms ruled by royalty who’d fulfilled the Happy Ending status quo naturally prospered, they said. According to surveys ( _surveys_ ), citizens generally felt safer living in a kingdom with an already-achieved Happy Ending, since it was statistically less likely for the following to occur: astronomical rise in price of yarn after country-wide issued spindle ban; mandatory ball attendance catered to male-identifying royal heir required by female identifying citizens despite their sexual and/or romantic orientation; contests that used taxes to set up to marry off the royal heir to the most fitting; and fuck knew what else. Some other shit Dean couldn’t remember.

Dean ran, cutting and slashing through the shrubs that stood in his way, cursing as branches got caught on his sleeves and slowing him down. He stumbled out of the greens, and ran for the stream ahead of him.

Technically, he was _king_. There was nobody before him after John, and he shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of crap, but apparently, a king who was also a bachelor wasn’t good enough for the old men writing the standards back in the good old days, no matter how awesome he’d be at ruling his own god damn reign. He would’ve held out against it too, except _Sam_ had slipped up and agreed it was a good idea at the time, and everybody knew things always went wrong when the oldest ignored the youngest sibling’s advice.

So here he was, stumbling across the forest, all because Sam slipped up. Dean knew it wasn’t Sam’s fault (it wasn’t like he was the one that came up with fucked up social norms), but right now as he crossed the stream and almost cracked his skull open on some of the more slippery rocks, he couldn’t help the little chant of _for fuck’s sake Sam why couldn’t you have just shut up for two seconds why did you have to say anything fuck fuck fuck_ going through his mind. He looked back, hoping the water would erase his scent enough to finally shake off those damn _dogs_ , but no, the ugly things were swimming across the stream, their fierce eyes trained right on him.

Shit. _Fuck_. People who thought being royalty meant getting to eat good food and lie around every day in a giant bed could go fuck themselves because _seriously_ , Dean was getting fucking sick of this shit. Being chased was one thing, fine, he was at least used to that, but being chased by _dogs_ was another thing because they just would _not_ give up, and Dean should probably run now that he wasn’t as waterlogged.

So maybe crossing that river wasn’t the smartest choice Dean had ever made in the twenty-nine years of his life. The not-as-waterlogged clothes were still too heavy and wet and terrible for his exhausted self to run in, and he soon found himself easily caught up, cornered by the dogs with nowhere to go, unless Dean could scale up the cliff blocking his way before the dogs got to him.

Dean glared at the dogs with his sword gripped tight. If this was a one-on-one fight, he might’ve been able to come out of it with only few scratches here and there, but this was a pack of dogs that were trained to hunt specifically Dean down. Dean wondered if he really stood a chance at all.

They circled him, their teeth bare and their growls at the back of their throats. He swung his sword around to keep them at bay, vaguely wondering what Sam would ever say to him if he saw him threatening these dogs (well, since he was about to be mauled, Sam would probably join in the fight, but he’d mope about it later). He stood his ground with his breath held at the back of his throat. He never even got to say good bye to Sammy, and he had so many things he wanted to do before he died, like become the country that produced the best pie and—

The dogs attacked him all at once, two coming at him from both sides and few jumping at him from the front. He propped himself against the cliff, and braced himself for the soon painful death because he wasn’t about to go down without fighting—

Except the wall of the cliff his hand was supposed to lean against wasn’t _there_ , and he waved his hands around and stumbled backwards onto the ground, the bewildered dogs the last thing he saw before everything went black.

Dean blinked and rubbed his eyes, a split second of panic shooting through him as he thought he’d gone blind and deaf. After realizing he was just being an idiot, he tried to process what had just happened. It was completely dark inside this… wherever he was. He put his hand in front of him, but he couldn’t see it or the rocky wall he felt in front of him.

He was just outside, and now he wasn’t.

He fumbled for a match in his bag (thankfully the water didn’t get to it) and blinked as it temporarily blinded him while fumbling for his small lantern. With the light from his lantern, he looked around at his new surroundings with astonishment.

There wasn’t anything special to it since he was mostly surrounded by rocky walls, but he was still marvelling at the experience of being inside a… cave (…cliff?) without meaning to enter one. There was nothing damp or cold about the place as he might’ve expected out of a cave, and the walls were a little too smooth compared to normal rocks. He marvelled at the roots reaching all the way down here. 

He didn’t know if the dogs were still outside waiting for him. He listened, but the moment he’d entered this place, he couldn’t hear anything from the other side. Hopefully disappearing into thin air threw them off a little.

He licked his finger and held in it air with half skepticism, his whole body sagging a little in relief when he felt a cool breeze against his finger. At least he wasn’t shut in. It also meant he might have a way out of here.

He checked the amount of oil he had. Around… a good 8 hours, at least. Hopefully that was more than enough to light his way out. Still, he dimmed the light to a mere flicker to preserve the oil in case it turned out to be a long walk.

It was a relief there weren’t many paths for Dean to take. The ceiling became higher as he walked on, proving this place was a lot bigger than he’d first anticipated.

Despite the light, he still somehow managed to come close to breaking his nose once or twice against those rocks growing out of the ground (sta… lagmite? Stalactite? One of those two). After a while with barely any change in scenery, he wondered if he was going to end up dead in the middle of nowhere after all, inside of a cliff where nobody would even know where or how to start looking for his body.

Just then, he felt another breeze in the air, and he picked up his pace—it was _hot_ in here. He dimmed his lantern to check for any change in lighting, but it was nearly impossible to tell with his eyes not quite adjusted to the dark.

Some kind of... rumbling came from beyond, progressively becoming louder the further he went, and Dean paused. The rumbling was deep and steady, vibrating through the cave. It was still somewhat faint, but it was enough to have his stomach flipping with nerves.

Something was living here. Something _big_.

Of _course_ something was living in here. He entered a cave through a god damn cliff with no entrance, so the only plausible explanation was that this was an enchanted cave. He couldn’t believe he didn’t figure out something so obvious sooner.

He hesitated in his steps, and kept going. Enchanted caves were always tricky, especially when they had some legendary item for heroes to snag underneath some kind of a guardian creature, and Dean bet (he hoped not, but knowing his luck) he accidentally stumbled into one of those. Status quo went that the harder to find the cave, the rarer the items, and the stronger the guardian.

Fuck, he wasn’t even _trying_ to search for whatever this guardian creature was guarding. Dean just happened to be the unlucky bastard that unintentionally found some malfunction or loophole in the enchantment, and now he probably had to face some kind of a guardian creature.

Maybe if he convinced it that he had no intention of stealing whatever the important legendary item was, it would let him go. Maybe even help him find a way out. Hopefully. He could only hope the item was important enough for it to have a highly intelligent guardian creature that was also capable of speech.

Maybe—hopefully—his luck hadn’t run out after all, and he’d stumbled into a bear instead of some other creature. Knowing his luck, he’d probably end up meeting a dragon in his life before he met a bear.

Ha. Yeah, right.

Dean stopped in his tracks as he felt walking into a much wider area, The somewhat narrow path had led him into what he guessed was a giant room of some sort, but it was darker in here than it was in the hallway. The light from his lamp wasn’t filling up the room, so Dean turned the lamp a little brighter with the intention of getting better look around, hoping for another path. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the new brightness, and... And...

A giant black _something_ laid in front of him, coiled around itself like a giant cat.

Well, that explained why it was so dark in here.

His mind raced to the nearest entrance, which was right behind him. The creature didn’t seem to have noticed him, and Dean hoped to any deities that were listening it would stay that way until he... what? Escaped through the non-entrance he’d somehow came through, which he could only go through from the other side?

Still, he couldn’t just _stand_ here and wait to be mauled. Dean backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on the thing. It seemed to be sleeping, and the last thing he wanted to do it wake it up—

Dean bumped against a stalagmite ( _or was it a stalactite?)_ , startling himself enough to drop the lamp with a loud clank, which of course echoed through the entire room.

He froze, unable to move as his heart almost jumped out of his throat. He shrunk himself as small as possible as he gauged some type of reaction from the thing, but it didn’t even budge. Slowly, _slowly_ , Dean let out a quiet breath, and looked for the lamp.

Fuck. _Shit_.

It had rolled all the way to where the thing was, lying _right_ beside it.

Okay, okay. He had to calm down. He wasn’t a bad swordsman or anything, and he was an _excellent_ marksman, but the thing was _huge_ , and Dean doubted he had any chance of surviving if it woke up and decided to take a swing at him.

But he couldn’t go on without light. He _needed_ the lamp to find his way out—sure, he had his matches, but he wasn’t about to light his way out by striking one match at a time, and the only way to go from here was past this creature.

Or he could just stay inside here forever and die. Ha ha. Ha.

Should he chance it? Its breathing was still steady, so it was probably still sleeping. Maybe it was deaf, seeing how it didn’t flinch at the loud noise. Which made no sense, because if the thing lived in here inside a dark ass cave, there was no way it was _deaf_ out of all things. Blind, maybe, but not _deaf_.

Still, if the thing didn’t notice such a racket as metal clanking against a solid rock surface, he might actually have to chance to get out of here alive.

Dean slowly, carefully edged himself towards the lamp, tip-toeing and making as little noise as he possibly could. He had cold sweat on his back because _damn it_ , this was no ordinary creature either. He could practically feel the magic crackling in the air just from its presence alone, and he couldn’t believe he was risking his god damn life for a god damn _lamp_.

The thing stirred, a rustling somewhere from above it, and Dean froze in his spot. It stilled again, the steady breathing back, and with a shuddering breath, Dean took another step forward. Another one. Another one. Another—

“ _Leave_.”

It almost sounded bored, as if it knew Dean was there the whole time, and fucking hell, it was so fucking unnerving to think it didn’t even gauge Dean as a threat while it was _sleeping_. Dean was so close to it, the thing could probably roll over and crush Dean any minute.

Dean recollected his thoughts, and stepped out backwards from the area. His eyes were practically bulging out in order to see a little clearer than the blur he was seeing now. The thing was intelligent enough for speech, and he was going to keep his eyes on the dark lumpy figure sitting on the other side if his life depended on it. Which, it did. Dean had almost reached where he entered the room from when the thing’s voice rumbled across the room, vibrating inside of Dean’s chest. “Wait.”

Nobody was going to _wait_ if they were told to wait. Despite all the warnings from Bobby about wild animals and sudden movements, he bolted for the exit. Either this thing was fickle and decided to kill him after all, or it decided Dean was an adequate guest for a tea party, and Dean somehow doubted the latter was the case (besides, Dean _hated_ tea parties. Small talks with people he saw maybe every half a decade, ugh).

He could hear the creature slowly uncoiling itself, and Dean was almost there, he was so fucking _close_ —

Dean’s mind and body decided to not coordinate with each other then, tripping on nothing and having the breath knocked out of him. _Focus focus_ focus, he chanted, gritting through the sharp pain and whipped back up—

Only to find himself staring right at the creature.

“You,” it said, barely above a whisper, “forgot your lamp.” It tilted its head slightly, probably to point out the fallen lamp the stupid human forgot.

The stupid human who was too busy staring up (when did he fall back to the ground?) to make out anything more than the shape of its head because it was dark as fuck in here but it was enough to piece things together—the stupid human who was starting to hate the idea of it seeing how fucking terrified he was with it right in front of him because—

That was—

That looked like a dragon.

The last time someone reported seeing a dragon was at least a hundred years ago. Nobody was stupid enough to go against a dragon when they could face other easier monsters during their quest, and unless this legendary item was actually _legendary_ legendary, there was no way a fucking dragon was guarding anything in this weird ass cave-cliff place.

And of course, Dean was the lucky guy to see one after at least a hundred years.

It stared at Dean, with Dean paralyzed where he sat. He wondered if dragons could see better in the dark, and hoped it wasn’t true. He was glad he couldn’t see any details because this was _terrifying_ , but he also hated the idea that _it_ could see _him_ when _he_ couldn’t see _it_.

Dean couldn’t move, but he didn’t run either, forcing himself to not look away from under the unwavering gaze. He was (technically)  _king_ for fuck’s sake, and he figured if he couldn’t face a dragon, he probably couldn’t face anything else life felt like throwing at him when he had to rescue a princess later. If he had a later, that was.

So, Dean worked up the courage to stand up despite his shaky legs (stop shaking stop shaking stop _shaking_ —). Seeing its message across, the dragon coiled back in on itself. It seemed to watch from its spot as Dean took one step forward at a time. Dean glanced between the lamp and he thought where its head was, hoping he was staring at it right in the eyes.

It felt like years before it growled in impatience, rustling from where it was and almost giving Dean a heart attack. “Hurry up,” it grunted.

If dragons ate people for breakfast (or would it be lunch by now?), this one was pretty impatient to get its meal. The dragon didn’t seem in any hurry to kill him or anything, but Dean wasn’t about to take the risk. He had to get out of this alive somehow.

With what, exactly? He had his sword, but he wasn’t sure how effective it would be against the dragon’s hard scales. He heard about one princess who was kidnapped and had to fill a status quota of stories and riddles every day before she was released, but he wasn’t a princess and he doubted the dragon would be pleased if Dean randomly started shouting riddles at it.

The dragon must’ve noticed Dean’s discomfort. “I’m not going to hurt you,” it said as if explaining to a child.

“Right,” Dean gritted out, holding onto his bravado. He gripped onto the hilt of his sword a little tighter than necessary.

“ _I_ was the one to let you in here, away from those taxing animals. When I say you can leave, you can _leave_ ,” the dragon said, sounding almost offended as if Dean would think otherwise.

“Maybe you led me in here to eat me,” he tried. Shit, too _blunt_ , that was terrible—

“I’m not so weak that I can’t hunt without lying to my prey,” it replied dryly. “And I don’t eat _humans_.”

Dean stared, digesting this new fact. It could be lying, but if what the dragon was saying was the truth, then… it had saved his life.

The dragon let out a low growl then, and Dean wiped away his thoughts because it was stupid of him to even think that a dragon could be _not_ harmful, when he realized the growl wasn’t directed at him. The growl continued as some sort of a... whimper, sounding too much like pain even to Dean’s untrained ears. He frowned and examined the dragon more closely, watching as it writhed in its spot.

“Hey,” Dean asked cautiously. “You alright?”

The dragon huffed through its nostrils. “It’s none of your concern, human.”

Well, it had a point. Besides, if it was hurt enough to not be able to move, Dean had the advantage here. He could probably—definitely—leave if he wanted to.

Fuck. What would Sam say? Dean liked to think he would do the same thing as what Dean was about to do, but in reality he’d probably call Dean an idiot and tell him to get out of there _right_ now. What would Bobby say? He’d probably cuff him a good one on the back of his head and call him an idiot too, and go on another rant about how he had to stay alive if he didn’t want to see the kingdom crumble beneath their feet.

Well, Dean was an idiot and his kingdom had an idiot king.

He let out a short burst of breath before he practically jogged over to the lamp, shrinking back to his spot as soon as he retrieved it. There wasn’t much oil left in it, but enough to light it. He winced at the match as it burst into flames, and threw it into the lamp with his eyes already squinting to prepare for the sudden brightness.

He shone the light towards the dragon and (don’t think about it don’t pay attention to it just _focus_ —) watched as its pupil contracted into a needle that was surrounded by an overwhelming blue iris.

The dragon narrowed its eyes at Dean. “What are you doing?”

Upon closer inspection, there was a dark splotch of some sort near the dragon’s belly, right underneath one of its wings. Dean blared up his lamp and squinted at the spot.

He approached the dragon in slow steps to show it he meant no harm, and the dragon did nothing but watch with what Dean identified as mild curiosity. When Dean stood in front of the wound—it looked pretty serious now that he was closer enough to inspect but still too far to approach it—it hissed baring its teeth, and hid its wound with its left wing.

“I can help you out,” Dean said aloud, making sure his voice was steady and calm and non-threatening—though, he wondered just how menacing he needed to sound before he could possibly scare a dragon.

“No, you won’t.” The dragon growled.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t treated it, and it’s getting infected.” Dean gestured at the area, still hidden behind its wing. “It’s why you’re hiding in here, isn’t it?”

“I _will_ rip off your head if you touch it,” the dragon growled in response, rustling with distress.

“Dude, you need help. Let me help you.” Dean chewed at his lips. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you or anything.”

He knew how ludicrous he sounded, and it agreed with him. “You expect me to trust you,” it replied with disbelief.

“I expect you to let me pay you back for saving my life.”

The dragon peered at Dean, its stare sharp and assessing. Dean forced down the temptation to fidget with his hands under its gaze.

After few minutes of contemplating whether to speak up or not, Dean cleared his throat. “So are you going to let me treat the wound, or what?”

It huffed, and turned away from Dean, draping its head against its forearms and its wings tucked away. It watched as Dean approached the wound, craning its neck slight to get the full view. Now that Dean was close enough, the clumsy way it’d tried to treat itself was evident. “Dude, you’re not supposed to pull out whatever is sticking out of you. You could die of blood loss.”

It let out a steam of air in reply.

“Alright, then.” Dean rubbed his palms together, and tentatively brought up his spare shirt soaked with alcohol. The dragon hissed at the smell, and Dean pulled away with both his palms up in the air.

“Easy,” Dean hushed, using the voice he used to use on Sam whenever he accidentally hurt himself when they were little. He reached for the wound again, and the dragon tensed visibly. “You gotta relax, man, or it’s just gonna hurt more.”

“Just get on with it,” the dragon gritted out.

Dean shrugged. “Alright.” He took one deep breath. “On the count of three. One—”

Dean firmly applied the cloth onto the wound without further warning. The dragon _roared_ along with a stream of fire, lighting up the cave in all shades of yellow and orange and red and blue. The flames licked the rock and blew a hole through the ceiling, a bright ray of light streaming into the room. The dragon flapped its wings on its hind legs, and glared down at Dean.

“ _What happened to two and three?_ ” Its voice thundered as it shoved its face at Dean, getting way too close for Dean’s liking. Its nostril almost touched Dean’s face, and it took all he had to not whimper.

“It’s an old trick,” Dean replied, physically forcing himself to swallow breaths between his words. He could practically taste the smoke on his tongue from how close it was. “So you don’t expect the pain.”

With the light from the ceiling, Dean finally saw what it looked like. It really _was_ huge, its height almost twice Dean’s height, and he bet if it stood up it’d be fuckton bigger. The black scales almost looked blue-ish as it reflected against the sun, its nostril long and sturdy. Its blue eyes were piercing, and it had two sets of horns, one set pointing directly upwards and the other curled right above and around a set of flaps, which Dean suspected were where its ears were. Its bat-like wings were folded, but Dean didn’t doubt they stretched wide enough to withhold its own weight.

It was an intimidating sight, and Dean potentially had pissed it off. He steadied his shaky limbs. “Let me fix you up.”

The dragon glared, its white pointy teeth still bared from pain. Dean held its glare, not really wanting to know what would happen if he looked away.

It squinted at him and curled its neck back to the front, going back to its former pose. Dean let out a sigh of relief, and got to work on the wound.

Dean carefully dabbed at the area with the shirt, cleaning the blood off. They said a dragon’s blood could eat through the skin, and Dean maneuvered the cloth so he didn’t come into contact with the blood itself, but the shirt showed no signs of damage. It was probably an old wives’ tale, seeing that nobody had dealt with a dragon in a while, and those who claimed to have done so in the past probably told their tales in the most extravagant ways possible to make themselves look more grand (although he doubted Gabriel had ever _actually_ fought a dragon once, no matter how powerful he was).

His mind wandered to the first-aid stuff in his bag, but he wasn’t sure how to treat a dragon’s wound exactly, nor did he know if any of this stuff was effective _for_ a dragon. This thing bled blood, so the treatment shouldn’t have been any different from any other animals... right? Well, right or not, Dean would just have to roll with that theory.

Two aching arms and a (hopefully) disinfected wound later, Dean was done. The dragon didn’t say much, nor did Dean, but by the time he was flexing his arms to feel the strain of his muscles, he didn’t feel the need to bolt out of where he was or scream hysterically. Hey, he was pretty proud of himself for that.

He grieved his loss of his white undershirt—Jo had embroidered his initials on the corner of the shirt when they were kids, but he had nothing else to use as emergency dragon bandages, which wasn’t a set of words he thought he’d ever use in his life, but okay, whatever. The dragon shuffled and asked what it was for, and Dean had to explain it was to cover the thing so it didn’t become infected again when Dean wasn’t here anymore. It did the whole staring-at-Dean-until-he-was-uncomfortable thing again, but by this time Dean was starting to get used to that stare.

“How could you not know that?” Dean grumbled, tightening the undershirt with its sleeves. “It’s not like you’ve never gotten hurt before.”

The dragon made a noncommittal noise in response, a puff of breath from its snout. Dean tried to be quick in case the dragon’s patience wore thin and decided to bite off his head after all, but the thought that maybe the dragon wasn’t as malicious as he assumed it to be was winning over all the other thoughts in his head. Dangerous territory, Winchester.

Dean examined the bandage for the last time before dusting his ass off. “Alright, big guy. You’re good to go.”

It cocked its head to examine the work Dean had done, and looked back up at Dean. He shifted his weight on his feet, waiting for it to say something.

“What?” Dean finally asked, not understanding the puzzled looks that were continuously thrown his way. It was like it’d never seen a person before. Sheesh.

The dragon peered, looking a little less intimidating and a little softer around the edges somehow. “Thank you.” It said with much sincerity, taking Dean by surprise.

“Um. No problem. Don’t sweat it, man.” Dean coughed. “Can you tell me how to get out of here now?”

The dragon shifted in place, lowering its head to Dean’s height.  It blew a stream of fire onto the nearest wall without warning, the heat of the room almost overwhelming. Dean wanted to look away from the bright orange and blue flames that strained his eyes, but the way the fire slowly pushed itself into the rocks was pretty mesmerizing.

It went on for a little while before the dragon craned its neck back to Dean. “This should lead you back outside,” It said simply, and Dean coughed out a laugh. He was glad for the hole it blew on the ceiling earlier since the smoke was making him feel a little lightheaded.

“Thanks. Hey, you stay safe, alright? Don’t get that wound infected.”

The dragon huffed, and said nothing in return as it curled back into a ball just the way Dean had found it.

Inside the tunnel was scorching, but bearable. Dean suspected if it weren’t for his heavy boots his feet would’ve been ten degrees of burnt, and he took care to not touch any of the surfaces. The further he went, the less squishy the ground became, which made sense but was still relieving on Dean’s part. It also looked similar to the entrance Dean came from, and Dean could only assume that it actually created this enchanted cave to hide and nurse its wound.

By the time he saw a little light at the end of the tunnel, he realized he really did survive an encounter with a dragon and his limbs had finally stopped shaking from excitement. A hurt dragon, but still.

Oh, wait till Sam and Bobby heard about this.

By the time Dean reached the end of the tunnel, the sun was hanging just above the horizon. He expected it to have been few hours, but he didn’t realize he’d been in the cave with the dragon for so long. He breathed in the crisp air, letting the scent of earth and trees fill up his lungs. He hated being trapped in a small space with no way out.

He glanced back at the tunnel to get a final look before he set off, only to see nothing but a rocky wall. He stared. “What the—”

He tapped the rocks, expecting to feel its cool surface under his palms, only for his hands to go right through the wall. He stumbled back, clutching his hands against his chest in the split horror of the invisible opening closing up around his wrists and his hands snapping off.

Right. He’d almost forgotten how he ended up inside the cave in the first place. The dragon did say it was the one to let Dean in, and seemed like it was telling the truth if the illusion was anything to go by. He stared at the walls, innocently existing when it wasn’t actually there. Huh, pretty neat.

Dean set out on his way again, doubting he’d be able to get to the town he’d been planning on getting to by nightfall, so he picked up twigs to use as a fire starter while looking for a place to settle for the night. After maybe half an hour of walking, he came across a clearing, surrounded by a roundabout of trees. Some of the brighter stars had already started to peek out, the dusk settling into the night. It’d be at least another half an hour before the dark settled in completely, but the chill of the woods at night was already seeping into his clothes, and he needed what was left of the light to light the fire.

This place would have to do for the night, then.

It was dry enough for the fire to catch on fast, and Dean settled down with his back against the flames, the warmth seeping through his clothes. He was fucking starving, and he made do with what he had on hand, which was his day’s ration of bread and cheese.

He heaved a sigh at the loaf of bread in his hand, already somewhat chewy from the dampness of the night. He’d do a lot of things for a nice, hot cup of coffee right about now, along with some nice, hot stew. If it weren’t for _him_ , he wouldn’t even be here right now—

A bristle to his left interrupted his thoughts and his hand flew to his dagger, his eyes already adjusted to the dark of the woods and searching for whatever had made the noise. He didn’t see anything between the trees.

He pricked his ears to listen, but he heard nothing except for the steady cry of the crickets in the distance. He held onto his alertness for few more minutes before he let himself relax a little, and went back to eating his meal.


	2. In Which Dean Ends Up with a Travelling Companion

Dean woke with a shiver, his sleeping bag and his clothes and probably everything else he owned damp with morning dew. He packed quickly, eating another loaf of bread with cheese for breakfast while doing so. He cleaned up the camp site, spreading the ashes all around to hide his scent, and set off for another day of walking. Thinking about it, making a fire in the middle of the woods was the stupidest thing he could've done last night; it kept him warm throughout the cold night, but he was lucky nobody had found him while he slept. Hopefully, he still had his luck from yesterday and he won't come across anything trying to kill him today.

He stretched his arms while he walked, his muscles stiff from sleeping on the cold ground. He would’ve done a lot of things for a nice warm shower right about then, but he didn’t have much of an idea where he was, which meant he had no idea how long it would take for him to get to the nearest village. The damned dogs chased him off his supposed route, then he went through a cliff in a literal sense, so his map was pretty useless at this point. He thought of backtracking, but the idea of a pack of hunting dogs possibly waiting around for him kept him going forward. He wasn’t taking any chances if he could help it.

Dean walked on, completely lost. When he came across the boulder he was pretty sure he passed by half an hour ago, irritation climbed up his throat, threatening to take over. He took a deep breath, and opened his map for the umpteenth time, hoping maybe this time he would miraculously be able to tell where he was. 

That, and the fact he was purposely stalling. He still had the prickly feeling of someone watching him, which didn’t help his already tired nerves. He took his time folding the map, and tightened his grip on his luggage as he came to a decision. He could practically feel their eyes tracking every single one of his movement, and ignored the impulse to look around to see where they were watching him from. His heart drummed in anticipation as he made his way to where the denser part of the forest was starting, while making conscious effort to keep his pace steady and his body non-stiff. When he reached the denser part of the forest, he broke into a run.

He could hear the panicked rustling behind him, all the pretense of trying to be sneaky, gone. They rustled into a run after him, some running to his sides and some right beside him, and most definitely more than Dean had initially anticipated.  He was hoping that zigzagging through the denser part of the forest might help him lose him, but life wasn't fair, and a good night's sleep by a bright campfire was all it was going to grant him.

Dean could hear a rapid rushing of water, and panic flared up in his chest. That sounded like a waterfall, and the last thing he wanted was to be cornered with it to his back. He abruptly stopped with the intention to sprint in a parallel direction with the river when he hit the ground. The breath was knocked out of him, and he saw white pain flash before his eyes, his face scraping against the gravel as he blindly stabbed the weight above him. He pushed the dead weight off of him, and stumbled back on his feet and quickly gathered back his wits to realize he was pushed towards the waterfall when the guy had tackled him to the ground. His eyes roamed his surroundings, but a quick survey told him there was no other way than either the gigantic waterfall behind him, or the attackers in front of him, blocking any possible escape routes.

A cooling corpse lay by his feet, and Dean bit back his frustration at the sight. He fucking hated killing people.

He ripped his gaze from the corpse and flashed an easy smile before the crowd. “Surely we can talk this out,” he said with his arms wide open.

One man stepped out of the group, his face covered with a black cloth like the rest. Still, Dean would recognize him from anywhere.

“Zeke,” Dean called, and huffed out a defeated laugh, a humourless smile on his lips. “Can’t trust anyone these days, huh.”

Zeke did nothing to deny his identity. “I wanted to help with you and your brother’s mission. Truly.”

“You sure got a weird way of showing it.”

“I _am_ sorry about this.”

Bullshit. “That’s ‘Your Highness’ to you, you son of a bitch.”

Dean gripped the hilt of his sword tighter, fighting back a shiver from the crawl on his skin from his fight-or-flight instincts. They surrounded him in a semi-circle with his back to the waterfall and inched closer to him, snarling him like he was an animal being hunted.

It pissed him off.

“You listen to me, you sons of bitches.” Dean gritted out, making sure to meet each one in the eyes. “You better do your fucking worst, because _I_ will be the one to hang every single one of you fuckers once I survive.” He grinned. “And believe me, I will.”

Some of the attackers exchanged an uneasy glance, and the sight gave Dean a vicious thrill. He mocked them with another grin, and readied himself for a brutal death.

Just then, a flash of light caught the corner of his eyes, presumably reflected against a blade, and shit, _when_ did they get over there?

He knew he couldn’t will his body to respond fast enough, to turn around and parry the blow, to stab the person and escape, to do _something_ instead of standing there like an idiot about to be killed, when a man in nothing but a blood-stained shirt appeared and blocked the strike.

With his bare hand.

“Is it a hobby of yours to be surrounded by things that want to kill you?” the man asked, paying no mind to the blade in his hand nor to the tens of people standing around to kill Dean.

“Uh,” Dean replied. Before he processed what was happening, the man took the sword out of its owner and blunted them in the stomach with the hilt, causing them to double over. The man backtracked to where Dean was, wrapped his arms around him from behind—without pants on because this was Dean’s life—and then they were jumping.

Down the waterfall.

By the time Dean’s brain caught up and properly reacted—because yes, they were _falling_ down this giant ass waterfall and this was it, after all that trouble to stay alive Dean was going to die at the hands of some weird ass mooner—their freefall aligned with the waterfall broke with a giant _flap_ from behind them, suspending him and the stranger in the air for a split second before they were—

They were _flying_.

Gliding was probably the proper term, but it was still enough to punch the air out of him from shock. He could do nothing but watch as the water beneath him rushed behind him, the stranger’s steel grip still tight around him. He stayed as still as he could, rigid and stiff in the hold.

He wondered if he was actually dead, if Metatron’s little army of assassins had killed him, and his mind was just creating semi-terrifying experiences to cope rather than accept death as it was. The cold sting on his face from the wind and the warmth that soaked his back told him that no, this was absolutely real.

What felt like years after, they finally, _finally_ landed somewhere downstream that was remotely wooded and hidden away from prying eyes. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Dean scrambled away from the stranger’s hold.

The man regarded him with a little tilt of his head, the look that of an innocent child. The action sent an ominous shiver down Dean’s spine, all of his instinct telling him to _run, run, run_. This man was dangerous, and Dean knew that nothing he could do could truly threaten him. He couldn’t let him know that his legs weren’t only shaking because of the flight.

The man noticed Dean’s tight grip against the tilt of his sword, and frowned at it. “I _saved_ you,” he stated.

Dean huffed. “Yeah, thanks for that. And whose blood is that?”

The man looked down at his shirt and pinched at it. “Mine.” He looked back up with a deeper frown, as if he was confused on why Dean was so hostile towards some guy who appeared out of nowhere wearing nothing but a shirt covered in blood and kidnapped him down a waterfall.

“Yours?” Dean echoed.

“Yes.” The man took a step forward, and Dean stepped one back. “Why are you afraid of me?” he asked, exasperated.

Dean resisted an eyeroll. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you fucking popped out of _nowhere_ covered in blood and grabbed a sword with your _bare hand_? Not to mention the fact that I’ve never, _ever_ seen magic like that before.”

He blinked. “Magic?”

“You did the—whatever it is. We—”Dean licked his lips. Dare he say it in spite of sounding ridiculous? “We _flew_.”

The man squinted at him. “That wasn’t magic.”

“What?”

“That wasn’t—” The man stopped himself, and studied Dean. Dean tried not to break their eye contact, and the staring went on for so long that he started to become really uncomfortable after realizing how he was staring at his left eye instead of both of his eyes since you can’t actually stare at both of someone’s eyes at the same time and—

The man furrowed his brows. “You don’t recognize me,” he said, almost in wonder.

“ _Should_ I recognize you?”

The stranger looked so genuinely disheartened by the statement, Dean almost felt sorry for the guy.

“Don’t you recognize this shirt?” He asked, stretching the shirt out in front of him for Dean to see. No, Dean didn’t recognize it, because he was trying to not let his eyes wander off, uh, elsewhere (shut up, despite the crazy tendencies, the guy had an impressive figure, alright?), and it was just an everyday long-sleeved white undershirt covered in blood and—

And there was no mistaking the little squiggly D. W. embroidered onto it.

“Motherfuck,” he blurted out. “That’s _mine_.”

The stranger straightened a little with a satisfied little smile on his face as if he was mentally patting himself on the back for a job well down, and watched the gears in Dean’s brain turn. The shirt was the same kind as the one he used yesterday to bind the dragon’s wound, and everything was starting to make sense in a way, it _did_ , but how—

“But you’re—you look…” Dean gestured at him, looking for the right word. “Human,” he settled.

He frowned. “This form is just as much as me as what you’d call my ‘dragon’ self,” he stated with the whole quotation marks.

“Huh,” Dean let out, deciding not to comment on the odd human gesture, suddenly too aware of the figure in front of him and how _big_ his presence felt compared to few seconds ago. “So why did you? Decide to take that form when you were your, uh, dragon self yesterday, I mean. And how did you even…”

The dragon shrugged. “It’s easier to navigate myself in the woods when I’m smaller.”

Dean stalled on that statement. Something about it screamed unnatural, and his thoughts traced back to how he appeared out of nowhere just now, like he was… there the entire time Zeke was confronting Dean. His mind whipped back to the bristle he thought he heard last night by his campsite, and the constant prickling he felt behind his neck as if something was watching him. “Have you been _following_ me?”

For the first time since the conversation, he averted his gaze from Dean, his stance faltering a little.

“ _Why_?” Dean asked, genuinely curious.

The man—dragon—turned his eyes back to Dean and scoffed. “That’s none of your concern.”

“Uh, I think it is, considering I just found out you’ve been stalking me for the past—how long?”

Only when the figure glared at him did Dean shut his mouth. It wasn’t hard to forget the man-like creature with the dark, dishevelled hair and the bright blue eyes and no pants on in front of him (and for fuck’s sake, if Dean’s mind could stop helpfully supplying that last bit that’d be great) was the same dragon as the one he found in the cave yesterday, who could still probably crush him to death in a second if he wanted to.

Dean cleared his throat and extended a hand. “I’m Dean.”

The dragon stared at the outstretched hand and shook it. “Castiel.”

No tingle, no sudden combustion or anything. All Dean felt on his hand was another human (not that he was human, and why was his hand so sweaty?), though he wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting. Castiel only went on shaking his hand to the point where Dean’s arm was starting to feel a little ache.

“Um, okay. Can I offer you some pants now?”

Castiel looked down at himself and looked back up at Dean. “You may.”

Sometime later, Dean found himself being trailed by a dragon wearing his clothes and his spare pair of boots. Dean heard the steady footstep behind him, the twigs and leaves crunching beneath his feet, and almost turned around to ask him if he could _please_ walk a little less obviously. He changed his mind when he reminded himself that the figure innocently trailing behind him could probably fend for himself if they were found again.

After an hour or so of nothing but steady footsteps, Dean couldn’t take being watched anymore. He turned around to meet that stupid piercing gaze with equal force (or at least he hoped with equal force. To be honest, he’d rather stare down the sun than Castiel).

“Look, if you’re going to follow me around—”

“I told you, we’re only going the same way.”

“Uh huh. Humour me. Since we’re… as you put it, going the same way, what do you say we, uh, travel together until one of us reach our destination?”

Castiel narrowed his eyes with a barely noticeable tilt of his head. Dean tried to be nonchalant about it and gave a tight smile. “Where you headed, Castiel?”

“Where are _you_?” Castiel counted.

“I’m—on a journey.” Dean scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I’m more of on a quest than a journey, but you get the jist.”

Cas frowned. “What’s the difference?”

“A quest is when you’re looking for an item and a journey is when you have a specific destination in mind.” Dean started walking again, and Castiel followed. “Or was it the other way around?”

“Wouldn’t a quest be more of when you have a purpose to fulfil?” Castiel bemused. “I’ve met plenty of knights whose quest wasn’t to find an item.”

Dean waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t actually know, man. It’s something my brother told me once upon a time, and I wasn’t paying that much attention. Anyway,” he stressed, “where are you headed?”

Castiel frowned with his head bowed and glanced up at Dean. “I’m on a quest as well.”

“Okay.” Dean nodded. “What kinda quest?”

“A delivery.”

Dean raised his eyebrows in question. “What kinda item needs to be delivered by a _dragon_?”

Castiel stiffened. “It’s none of your concern, human.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, I heard you the first five hundred fucking times. Are all dragons so holier-than-thou, or are you the only one with a stick up your ass?”

That was obviously the wrong thing to say, and really, what kind of a fucking idiot badmouthed a fucking dragon? Dean. Dean was the idiot, and Castiel stilled in his steps with a glare.

“I don’t _need_ to explain myself to you,” he said slowly as he stared directly into Dean's eyes with his own glossed over ones, theoretically doing nothing to threaten Dean’s life, and yet somehow Dean could practically see his life flashing before his eyes. “I have every right to withhold personal information from you.” Dean felt the bark bite his back as he backed up against a tree. “I owe you _nothing_.”

“I saved your life _twice_. And I can undo that any time, if I wanted,” Castiel barely whispered, yet every word registered in Dean’s ears. “You should show me some _respect_.”

Dean gulped, barely noticing how their chests almost pressed against each other. Without waiting for a reply, Castiel tore his eyes off Dean and walked away.

Dean swallowed a sigh of relief. “Point taken.” After taking a little pause for himself, he power-walked to catch up to Castiel, who was swaying a little on his feet now. Dean was confused—c’mon, this guy had him backed up against a tree less than two seconds ago—until Castiel dropped to the ground.

Dean’s brain froze out of shock. Castiel laid on the ground curled into a ball with his eyes shut, and he was breathing in short, shallow sequences; drops of sweat formed between his furrowed brows, and Dean was petrified, feeling completely helpless at the sight.

Castiel let out a drawn out groan in pain then, finally snapping Dean out of his state.

“Dude. Castiel?” Dean knelt on the ground beside the figure, pressing down on the panic that rose to his throat. He cleared his throat in an attempt to clear his head, trying to not let the generic panic fall at the sight of someone in pain.

What would dad say?

 _Identify the source of the problem first, Dean_.

“Cas, what the fuck is going on? What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding calmer than he felt. When no response came, he gritted his teeth in frustration. “Dude, I get the whole thing with the personal info thing, and I get that you’re in pain, I do, but you gotta fucking tell me where or how you’re hurting, or I can’t _help_ you—”

“My—wound,” Castiel huffed out.

“Your—Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dean lifted the shirt up to find the stab wound oozing with blood and pus, its size proportioned to Cas’s current form, and huh, he found that little tidbit fascinating in a mildly detached sort of way.

“What did I tell you about not getting it infected? Why the hell didn’t you say anything? Actually, no, don’t answer that,” Dean grunted as he slung Cas’s arm behind and around his neck, supporting his weight as he dragged both of them to the side of the road to get out of sight. He bundled up his bag and put it under Cas’s head as a makeshift pillow, and watched as he scrunched his face in pain.

Dean cut the shirt open with medical precision, and took out some more clean bandages. He gently cleaned some of the blood off, and he could see now that the wound was bigger than before, the gash running from his ribcage all the way down to just above his hipbones.

At least this way, Dean actually had the proper equipments to fix up the wound. He took out his sewing needles and drenched it in alcohol. He was about to start on the wound when Cas grabbed his wrist.

“It’s not—” Cas licked his dry lips. “Don’t worry about that yet.”

“Meaning?"

Cas closed his eyes shut, obviously in pain and so pale compared to few hours ago. He looked like someone who was trying to regulate their breathing underwater: not very well, and dying.

“Cas, what can I do?” Dean asked, sounding as helpless as he felt.

“Cedar wood,” Cas rasped out. “Moss. Pine needles. Animal bone. I need them.”

“Any animal?”

Cas’s eyes fluttered open. “As long as they’re found in this forest, yes.”

“How long d’you think you have?”

Cas let out a huff, almost a pained sigh. “Few hours.”

Dean managed the cedar, the moss and the pine needles just fine. They _were_ in the middle of a forest full of them. He had a bit more trouble with the animal bone part, but he managed to stun an oblivious squirrel long enough to grant it a quick death.

He hurried back to where he left Cas, and quickly cleaned the squirrel for the bone. Dean grimaced for a second at the mushy guts getting on his hands _everywhere_ , ugh _,_ but life and death situation was triumphing over his germ problems, so he was going to have to suck it up. He laid out all the things Cas asked for in front of him; they were most likely ingredients for a spell, and he could only hope Cas knew what he was doing.

“Okay, now what?”

Cas cocked his head to meet Dean’s eyes. “Burn them.”

“Burn them?”

“Using the cedar wood, burn everything.”

Dean bit his lips in doubt. Didn’t sound much like a spell to him. “If this doesn’t work, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Cas rolled his head back onto the makeshift pillow, a slight delirious smile on his lips. “If you don’t hurry, I won’t live to see that day.”

Well then. Those words got him working pretty fast, and Dean was glad it’d been dry enough around these past few days for the fire to catch quickly. Once he got the fire going with the pine needles and the cedar wood, he unceremoniously dumped everything else into the makeshift pit he’d created with any rocks he could find.

The fire crackled and the pine needles made the fire particularly vicious, sending little embers into the air. Cas had opened his eyes at the sound, and was watching the flames lick the air. He slowly propped himself up, and made his way over to Dean’s side.

“Did you put everything in it?” Cas’s voice rasped against Dean’s ears, sending shivers down his body. Dean nodded an affirmative, and Cas squeezed Dean’s shoulder in a gesture of silent gratitude.

Cas spoke some words over the crackling. It was an odd experience to watch, as Dean knew Cas was speaking but his brain refused to acknowledge that he was speaking, none of the words actually registering in his brain as if someone was muffling the sounds on purpose.

Dean bit down a surprised yelp when the fire roared in response to Cas’s words, its flames tinted dark blue. He forced himself to stay still since Cas was using him and his shoulder as a support to stand over the fire and… And…

Cas reached into the fire, scooped it up, and ate it.

It shouldn’t have surprised him. If humans could drink water, then it was logical that dragons could eat—drink—consume fire. Still, Dean could do nothing but watch wide-eyed as Cas consumed the flames like Sam used to eat corn salad during his growth spurt—a damn hurricane sucking everything in without a pause.

It seemed to go on forever. The flames danced in Cas’s hands, leaving him unscathed despite the intense heat Dean could feel from the side. His body seemed to glow brighter and brighter until Dean had to look away and shut his eyes as the constant stinging from the light became unbearable.

When it was no longer bright enough to practically burn his retinas out, he looked back to find a fully healed Cas with the wound nowhere to be seen, and only the traces of soot left on the ground to indicate anything had happened here at all. Cas wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand, leaving a little smudge of soot beside his lips. Dean resisted reaching up to wipe it off.

“So,” Dean rasped out, blinking away the tears he didn’t know he’d shed. “That was….”

Cas slumped back onto the ground. “It healed me.”

Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yeah, I got that, doc. I mean, how did eating fire made of a bunch of things and becoming a temporary torch help your wound?”

“It didn’t. I was poisoned,” Cas stated. “It was inhibiting me from healing myself. All I did was remove it.”

 Dean found himself speechless for a second, and he took a second to recollect himself. “How the hell did you figure you were poisoned?”

“I…” Cas’s expression softened, his eyes far off. “I learned of the symptoms from someone who’s well-versed in the field.”

“Uh, okay.” Dean knew a look of lost companionship when he saw one. “So what, that was magic?”

“I suppose,” Cas said. “Just as if you were to call human medicine magic.”

“Uh… okay. So basically, that was your chicken noodle soup.”

Cas frowned. “I… Yes?”

Dean waved it aside. “Never mind. So you’re better? Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Dean looked up at the sky, the stars already starting to appear. Getting that stuff together had taken longer than he’d expected. It was that damn squirrel that took him so long. “Well, we better settle for the night, I guess.”

“I can keep going.”

“Dude, no. I’m _pooped,_ ” Dean declared. “We’ll start again tomorrow. I think we both deserve the rest.”

Cas nodded. “If you insist.”

Dean was too tired to eat at this point, but he still forced down a bit of bread with some dried jerky. Years of experience told him skipping a meal was never a good idea, no matter how safe he thought he was.

He stared at the sky through the canopy. They were far enough away from towns to see so many more stars than Dean was used to, and they looked like they were spilling out of the sky. He naturally tuned into Cas’s steady breathing a few feet away from him, along with the occasional gentle chirps of the crickets from the distance. He wondered what Sam would say if— _when_ he heard that Dean had slept only few feet away from a dragon.

Dean quietly chuckled to himself at the image of pure shock on Sam’s face, eyes and mouth wide open in awe. The nerd would probably ask him a thousand questions per minute until he exhausted himself on all the newfound knowledge.

His thoughts slowly dissolved into their future and he drifted to sleep, his last thought to walk three times as fast tomorrow.


	3. In Which Dean and Castiel Pause Their Quests to Have Candle-lit Dinners and Go Shopping

After shaking off the morning dew and grabbing a quick breakfast, Dean urged them to the next town. Cas complained about lack of patience in humans the whole time.

“I thought dragons were supposed to be morning creatures.”

Cas stifled a yawn with a glare sent Dean’s way. “We’re whenever-we-want-to-be creatures. I thought humans normally travelled on horses.”

“Yeah well, I’m not most human. Besides, are you seriously complaining because we’re travelling on foot when you could fly us both?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “That would be the equivalent of asking you to carry me and run all the way so we could arrive faster.”

“ _Seriously_?”

“Yes.”

“Well you take all the romance out of flying, don’t you.” Dean muttered with a shake of his head. He was secretly relieved he actually had an excuse to not utilize the fastest way since he never wanted to fly again ever, but he hopefully didn’t let that show too much.

They walked in silence, the unease of being around a general stranger buzzing underneath Dean’s skin. Cas seemed pretty okay with the lack of conversation, but Dean’s ingrained social behaviour to engage in polite, mindless small talks made him feel antsy from the lack thereof. Another minute of it, and Dean caved under the silence.

“Tell you what,” Dean said, taking a coin out from his pocket. “How about we exchange questions to pass the time? If we don’t want to answer, we can just say ‘pass’. Deal?”

Cas pondered the offer and nodded slowly. “Alright.”

Dean won the coin flip, so he went first. “How’d you get so hurt, anyway?”

Cas narrowed his eyes. “Pass.” Damn. “What are you on a quest for?”

“A person. How did you fly yesterday?”

Cas frowned. “With my wings. How else would I fly?”

Dean shrugged. “I mean, how did you… You were in your human form, so how’d you, you know. Pull your wings out?”

“It’s not hard to conjure up parts of my other form while I’m in one form,“ Cas said with a tone usually reserved for pointing out a rock on the side of the road, as if growing wings out from your back was an everyday thing. Well, it probably was for him, but Dean was only human.

“Who are you looking for?” Cas asked.

“What? Oh, uh.” Dean scratched the back of his neck. It shouldn’t be something he should feel ashamed about, but he did, like a kid caught in the middle of setting up an elaborate prank. “A princess. Or a damsel in distress. Whichever I come across first, I guess.”

“Ah.”

Dean side-eyed his carefully blank expression. “What?”

“I… may know of a princess who’s yet to be rescued,” Cas said. “Perhaps you might be interested.”

Dean blinked. His companion was a matchmaking dragon. Okay. “Go on.”

“Her castle resides in the middle of the Forest of Misdirection,” He explained. “Her inheritance is vast and impressive for human standards—”

“I don’t care about her wealth,” Dean interceded. “I just need to know if she’s a bona fide princess. She’s not one of those where I have to help find out that she’s the kingdom’s lost heir or anything, right?”

Cas scoffed. “No. Why does that even—”

“Legal issues,” Dean muttered, rubbing his chin in contemplation as he turned the suggestion over in his head. “So, Forest of Misdirection. What’s on the way? Any guardian creatures I should know about?”

“As far as I know, no.”

Forest of Misdirection didn’t sound too bad as far as obstacles went. Matter of fact, that sounded like a fucking walk through a park, possibly the easiest rescue Dean had ever heard of.

A little too easy for Dean’s liking. “So what’s in it for you?” he asked casually.

Cas blinked. “What?”

“What do you get out of this whole deal?”

He stiffened in annoyance. “She’s the daughter of a family friend,” he said with irritation, and huh, must’ve been some family, being friends with a dragon. “They’ve been worried that nobody’s come to rescue her even though she’s of age. I’m offering a solution to both parties involved. That’s _it_.”

Dean raised his hands at the defensive tone. “Hey, I’m just asking.” He gave the conversation a pause before asking, “If she’s of age, and the only thing that’s in the way is the forest, how come nobody’s tried to rescue her yet?”

“I’m sure people have tried, and failed. The Forest of Misdirection can be mischievous, especially if you have a specific destination in mind.”

Dean nodded slowly. “Okay. Alright, yeah. Makes sense.”

Except, not. If the forest was enchanted (Forest of Misdirection, _c’mon_ , that was an enchanted forest if anybody heard of one. Dean could practically hear the capitalized F on the name), there was bound to be specially trained guides who offered to take travellers through it. It was risky business, but anyone crazy enough to do it and succeed usually made fortunes out of helping a hero out.

Cas was obviously hiding something from him for some reason, and Dean didn’t like that at all—not when they would be travelling together for who-knew-how-long.

Well, maybe it was a bit neurotic to assume everyone was out to get him, but Dean couldn’t risk it. He grew up constantly watching both his and Sam’s backs, and it wasn’t like there weren’t assassins (with _dogs_ ) out to kill him right this instant anyway.

Just because he was a dragon didn’t mean he didn’t have ulterior motives. Everyone had ulterior motives.

Cas broke his train of thought with a weak huff. “I’m a dragon, Dean.”

Dean blinked at the declaration. “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

“So, we’re supposed to be arch nemeses, but…”

But they were working together. “I know.” Dean scrubbed his lips in thought. “Look, do you want to kill me?”

Cas cocked his eyebrows. “No.”

Well, at least no hesitation with that answer. Either he was a great liar, or he wasn’t really trying to kill him, which would be reassuring if Dean could just figure out what he was _hiding_.

“No. Well, me neither. So we’ll stay as buddies until whenever.”

“But according to traditions—”

Dean scoffed. “Screw whatever other people say, Cas. I don’t want to kill you, you don’t want to kill me, who’s to say we gotta fight, huh? No, don’t answer that.” Cas closed his mouth shut. “Besides, as far as everyone else is concerned, we’re just, you know, two humans travelling together.”

Cas frowned at that, obviously displeased at the thought of being mistaken for anything as lowly as a human being. Dean cleared his throat. “Okay, glad we had that talk. Whose turn to ask?”

“I don’t know,” Cas said. “I suggest another coin toss.”

“Yeah, alright.” Dean went to toss the coin, only for Cas to grab his thumb before it flicked the coin off into the air.

Dean stared at their conjoined hands. “Um.”

“I’d like to do it this time.”

“I already had it set up,” Dean complained. He wasn’t about to give up on a free question so easily.

“Of course. And I suppose you winning the last time was purely by chance.”

Dean gripped his chest mockingly despite the usual dreaded feeling in his guts at being found out. “What, you saying I cheated?”

“There isn’t any reason for you to not let me do this if you hadn’t.”

Dean rolled his eyes, and handed the coin without further words.

As expected, Cas won the coin flip with ease. Dean braced for the upcoming question, but all Cas asked about was his family, which was… Not expected, but okay. At least he could give an honest answer to this question.

He talked about Bobby, and Ellen and Jo, and Benny and Victor as well as Charlie and Dorothy along with few other people, but mostly he bragged about Sam since he wasn’t here to actually witness the embarrassing gushing.

He talked about how Sam had gotten his title as a Mage at the age of nineteen when most magic trainers didn’t get certified to use magic classified higher than Level 2 before their twenties, and how he was back home training to be the next High Mage by the best in the country, even though Sam was only twenty-five, and how High Mage apprenticeship was nearly impossible to achieve. Cas didn’t interrupt, listening with undivided attention which kinda weirded Dean out, but sort of in a good way.

After Dean finally shut up about Sam, he asked, “What about you, Cas?”

“What about me?”

“D’you have any siblings?”

“Yes, but I’m not as close to them as you are to Sam.”

“Yeah? How many do you have? Names?”

Cas wrinkled his nose. “It would take at least two days to list them all.”

“Oh, c’mon. You’ve gotta have at least few favourites.”

He huffed. “I suppose. I’d still rather not list their names since I don’t know what most of them are doing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cas shrugged. “You could know them for all I know, but maybe they don’t wish to it be discovered that they’re dragons.”

Dean blinked at this new piece of information. When it finally sunk in, his jaw dropped. “Are you telling me there could be _dragons_ disguised as humans living in my kingdom?”

“There most likely are, knowing our numbers,” Cas supplied helpfully. “Most of us have been living with humans in harmony for centuries.”

Dean groaned. “That, that is not helping, man.”

“And I told you, this form is just as much us as our ‘dragon’ selves. This is not a disguise.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself. He’d never been a dragon, so it wasn’t like he had any right to really argue against that. “Right,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

Cas nodded approvingly. “Apology accepted. I believe it’s my turn again,” he stated, and cocked his head. “Who were those people yesterday, Dean?”

Dean glanced at Cas and averted his eyes to the sky. The sunlight poured through the canopy, the sound of birds all around them. Getting into his… current stance wasn’t really a story he wanted to tell anyone, especially to a complete stranger who also happened to be someone Dean was hoping to keep around until he was safely back in his kingdom (well, safer than out here in the open)—even if said stranger happened to save him from the people who wanted to kill him twice already, and probably wasn’t prone to normal human dangers.

“I’ll pass on that question. Is that a town I see over there?” Dean squinted at a trail of smoke rising up to the sky as they trailed along the side of the forest. Cas side-eyed Dean but said nothing , hearing the unspoken ‘drop the subject’ between the lines.

They cut through a meadow full of dandelions and blue flowers with some other prickly grass things Dean had seen around before but never bothered to learn the names of, which Cas happily pointed out were cornflowers and some word Dean could _not_ pronounce to save his life.

The inn wasn’t busy, but it wasn’t empty either. The smell of musky wood and something delicious hit Dean’s nostrils as soon as the door creaked open, and _fuck_ yes, he wanted to cry at the indication of hot food.

“No, you have to _roll_ the r’s—”

“I think we’ve established that I can’t say it, Cas.” He handed him his smaller pouch of gold coins. “Look, I gotta take care of something first, so book us a room while I’m at it, would you? And get me some food.”

Cas frowned down at the brown pouch in his hand like it had personally offended him, and Dean left to go find the messenger.

There weren’t any words from Sam and Bobby, but Dean wrote a quick letter inscribed with the usual codes and vaguely worded sentences to let them know that he was still alive, and that he’d found someone to take him to an unrescued princess. He made it clear to the messenger that he was to deliver the letter to Benny Lafitte the blacksmith, and made his way back to the dining area.

He found Cas sitting by one of the inn tables with some meat and potatoes in front of him, his whole posture screaming that he was uncomfortable where he was. When he spotted Dean making his way back to him, Dean watched as his shoulders relaxed at Dean’s presence. He couldn’t help but find the gesture a little endearing, and shook away the thought with a scowl.

Cas was travelling with him as a means of protection, not so they could play buddy buddy together. Now that he had a lead to a princess, he wasn’t going to let a golden opportunity like this go that easily.

So, bottom line, Dean wasn’t going to get attached to someone he was using as a tool. As much as he hated considering _anyone_ a tool, desperate times called for desperate measures. He shoved away the lingering guilt. Involving any stupid emotions was only going to complicate things.

“Hey,” Dean greeted, and Cas pushed the dish of food towards Dean. Dean regarded Cas’s empty side. “You not hungry? You guys eat too, don’t you?”

“Of course we do.”

“So why didn’t you get anything for yourself?”

Cas blinked in surprised. Dean scowled. “C’mon, man, what do you think I am, heartless? Besides, you’ll need all the strength you can get. Excuse me,” he spoke to the passing barmaid. “What do you want, Cas?”

“Same as yours will suffice.”

Dean cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not talking about what’s sufficient. I’m asking what you _want_.”

“Oh.”

Dean shoved the menu in front of him. “Any takers?”

Cas studied the menu like his life depended on it, his brows furrowed tightly as he mouthed each name. It was a good five minute before he put the menu down with a small satisfying smile. “I think I’d like to try the coffee-soaked pork chop with tomato sauce and kale chips,” he said. “Please,” he added almost as an afterthought.

“ _Coffee-soaked_ pork with _what_?”

“With tomato sauce and—”

“No, I got that.” Dean leaned back with a grimace. “That sounds disgusting.”

Cas scowled. “You said I could have anything I wanted.”

“Yeah, doesn’t mean I can’t—” Dean felt the burning stink-eye the barmaid was giving him on the side of his face, and shut up. “One of that, please.”

“Coming right up. Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she added, and the nickname for one of the most formidable race in the world of magical creatures would be laughable if she wasn’t so sincere, “the dish is one of our _best,_ ” She said, giving Dean another pointed look before she left.

Sheesh, and to think Dean was the royalty here.

Cas tentatively picked up the cutlery care when his food arrived, as if putting more strength into it would crush the mundane, fragile human tool. Dean watched with amusement as Cas cut a small piece of the meat and chewed it thoroughly.

“Good?”

Cas swallowed. “Yes.”

“Is that enough food? I mean, I imagine being as uh, big as you normally are…”

“This form takes less energy for me to retain than my other one,” he said, food still half-chewed in his mouth. And Dean thought _he_ had bad manners. “This should be enough. Although,” he paused to gulp down his food, “you didn’t have to provide me with food.”

“Right. Well, we’re gonna be stuck together and you don’t have any money on you.”

Cas nodded an affirmative.

“So, I can cover the meals when we’re in towns.” Dean cut up a piece of meat for himself. “Pay me back with your hoard of gold later, or something.”

Cas frowned. “I don’t hoard gold, and that’s not necessary. I can hunt while you’re sleeping—”

Dean leaned against the table. “Look. You remember those men yesterday.”

Cas gave a short nod.

“And you asked me yourself if I was usually surrounded by things that wanted to kill me,” Dean hushed, his voice barely carrying over the loud noises of the inn. “Well, the short answer to that is yes. I need to stay discreet until I’m back in my castle with that princess of yours.”

“She’s not _my_ —”

“You understand why I can’t have you constantly sneaking out at night to hunt, right?”

“It will attract attention.”

Dean nodded. “If we’re going to be travelling together, I need us to be not as noticeable as possible.”

“What about when we’re nowhere near a village?”

“I’m going to try to buy enough food to keep us both going until we get to the next one.” Dean pointed his fork at Cas. “But if it’s absolutely necessary, and I mean _absolutely_ , then we can hunt as our last resort. Is that going to be a problem?”

Cas chewed his food slowly. Dean gulped. “No, that arrangement is fine with me,” he said around a bite of kale chips.

Dean let out an inaudible breath of relief. “Cool. That’s great, Cas. Thanks for being so understanding.”

Cas shrugged. “Do you know if we’re being watched right now?”

The statement was so casually thrown away, Dean almost missed it completely. _Is the weather outside cold enough for a jacket? Could you pass the salt? Are we being watched by traitors that want to kill you right now?_ “I don’t know, man. I think we lost them when you kidnapped me by the waterfall, but they could still be… close…”

Cas had stopped chewing at this point and was staring at him. Dean stared back in confusion until it dawned on him. “Oh.”

“Yes,” Cas replied, looking back down at his plate.

“Where—”

“The group of friends to your left in front of you, the elderly couple directly behind you, and the mother of two who’s three tables from you on the right.”

Shit, they were practically surrounded. How had he not noticed them before? He resisted looking around to see where they were watching him from. He suddenly felt prickles at his neck, the feeling of knowing there were eyes on him and making him hyper aware of everything around him. The clanking of the dishes, the mutters all around them, the distinct smell of tobacco in the air… It felt like he was standing in the middle of the room with a spotlight directed at their table.

He had to calm down. “Can you tell if they’re the same ones as yesterday?”

“No.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“They smell different.”

“They smell—” he grimaced. “Ugh, TMI, dude.”

Cas frowned, the calm composure replaced by a flash of annoyance. “You _asked_.”

Dean cleared his throat. Moving on. “D’you think we should…” he eyed the door.

Cas shook his head. “We already have a room here. We should stay.”

“No offense, Cas, but I really don’t want to wake up with a knife lodged down my throat. Not that I’d be able to wake up at that point, but—you know what I mean.”

“I’ll watch over you,” Cas replied simply.

Dean chuckled a little, devoid of humour. “Right. That’s… That’s not gonna happen.”

Cas frowned, steadily meeting Dean’s eyes. “Why not?”

“Because it’s _creepy_ , Cas. I’m not gonna get any shut eye knowing you’ll be watching.”

“But you said nothing when we were camping in the forest and took turns watching.”

“That’s—” Dean felt himself flush, though he didn’t know _why,_ exactly. “That’s _different_ , man. Look,” Dena waved his fork in front of Cas’s face, “nobody is watching anyone else sleep, alright?”

Cas stared back impassively. Dean groaned. “I just wanted a good night’s sleep for once. _One_ night.”

“My offer still stands, when you wish to take it.” Cas pushed his empty plate aside. “Shall we retire to our room?”

“Yeah, alright.” Dean shoved in the last bite and wiped his mouth crudely.

It was painstaking to look and act natural like they hadn’t noticed the room full of assassins, but they somehow made their way to their room upstairs. Dean opened the door to find one bed in the room. He stood by the doorway and surveyed the rest of the room to see if another bed was hiding somewhere while Cas yawned and was already making his way to the bed.

The one bed in the room.

“Why did you book us a one-bed room?” he demanded, the situation already grating at his tired nerves.

Cas slumped onto the mattress. “I rented the cheapest one.”

Matchmaking, personal savings dragon. Okay. “I gave you enough for a two-bed room, didn’t I?”

Cas cocked his head. “I didn’t realize it would consist of one bed. I told the lady downstairs I wanted a room, and she gave me this one.”

“You should’ve told her you wanted a two-bed room—” Dean sighed, feeling an oncoming headache. “You know what? Never mind. I’m tired, and I just want to sleep, and I’m not going to talk about this because we’re going to get our room switched, and things are going to turn out fine.”

Things did not turn out fine.

“What do you mean, you don’t have a two-bed room?” Dean gritted out, squishing down the urge to throw a chair at the wall.

The lady didn’t look up from her book. “What do you think I mean? There aren’t any more two-bed rooms. We’re booked.”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut and counted backwards from ten. “Okay. Do you have any other room that has a bunk bed? Or a couch, at least? Price is not a problem.”

Only then did the lady look up from her book and cocked him an eyebrow. “The only room that’s not booked for the night is the honeymoon suite.”

Dean knew he was blushing at this point, but if it meant not squeezing onto that one tiny single bed with Cas upstairs in their current room, then so be it. “Bigger bed, right?”

So Dean found himself at the foot of a honeymoon suite with a dragon beside him, squinting at him with half-amusement and half-curiosity. Dean stepped inside, refusing to look at Cas after seeing the red and white candles stationed all over the room (representing harmony or some shit like that), and one king-sized bed in the middle.

“Not a word,” Dean warned, a finger pointed at Cas’s face.

Cas snorted in response and commented anyway. “So being watched is a problem, but booking a romantic getaway room for joined couples with me isn’t?”

“Shut up. This doesn’t actually mean anything, so who cares.” Dean muttered, facing away to kick his boots off and hide the redness tinting his cheeks as he discovered a pack of condoms inside the bedside drawer. For fuck’s sake. “Besides, we wouldn’t be having this problem if you didn’t screw up.”

Cas snuffed. “I believe it’s your fault entirely for giving me a human task I’ve never done before and expect me to not ‘screw up’,” He quotation marked.

Dean stared yet again at the strangely human gesture, and shook his head (where the hell did he learn that anyway?). Like he said, he was tired, and he didn’t want to deal with arguing about whose fault was what, let alone think about who might be waiting for him to fall asleep just outside of that door. He let out another sigh, staring at how easily Cas was slipping under the cover.

Dean just couldn’t catch a fucking break.

He took his time in the bath, scrubbing every little bit of skin he could get his hands on. He cleaned the dirt off his newly acquired wounds, mostly on his knees and hands from falling. He had a rock stuck underneath his left palm and he soaked in the water until the skin was soft enough to dig it out. Besides, who knew how long it would be before he could take another bath with hot water, so he was going to savour every last second of it.

After taking off what felt like years of grime, Dean found Cas already curled up underneath the covers, his eyes closed shut and his breathing even. Dean snorted. So he was more tired than he let on as well.

He slid into the bed, making sure their backs weren’t touching as much as possible. Cas’s slow, even breaths broke with a stutter at the shift of the sheet.

“Oh, did I wake you?” Dean asked. Cas blearily blinked up at him. “Sorry, man.”

Cas grumbled, and tossed a few times before facing the other way. The bed was already warm from his body heat (did dragons have higher body temperature or something? The bed was fucking _boiling_ ), and Dean sank into the heat regardless of how fucking hot it was. He felt the body beside him rise and fall in a steady rhythm, and felt his own body match it. He stared at the drawer against the wall, the room too dark to make out its design.

Maybe it was the comfort of not having to face him, but the dark gave Dean a new sort of courage, and dared him to open his mouth. “Hey, you still awake?”he whispered, wondering what he was afraid of that had him hold back breaths. He almost wished Cas was too deep in sleep to respond.

Cas grunted an affirmative.

“How come…” he started, trying to form the stray thoughts he’d had all day into coherent words. “You said the magic you used to heal yourself, you said you sucked up the, er, forest’s essence or something?”

He heard a brief inhale before Cas spoke. “Yes.”

“How does that exactly work?”

For a moment, all was silent, and Dean couldn’t even hear the crickets outside their windows, as if they were also waiting for Cas to respond. He vaguely realized that maybe he’d asked some top dragon secrets, and Cas was trying to find a way to politely turn him down (although Cas didn’t really strike him as the kind of guy that cared about etiquette half the time).

“Humans,” Cas started, “certain humans can use magic by controlling the essence in the air. The longer you practice, the more you can control. You are still limited to borrow. You still have limits. Most have equipment that helps channel it more easily, such as wands and staffs.”

Dean nodded. He knew that from watching Sam and Gabriel.

“Us dragons, we’re born with a certain ability to… store that in us until we need it. Think of the essence as a river, a constant flow of water, and myself as a dam.”

“And humans?”

“It would be for you to stand by the river and trying to scoop the water out with your hands.”

“Okay,” Dean nodded. “I think I kinda get it. So you have the ability to—to absorb and contain this essence stuff for later and use however much you need out of your hoarding pot when you use it, but humans can only grab and use ‘em from the air when they use magic, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes,” Cas replied, sounding relieved.

“So the poison before,” Dean said, coming to a dawning realization, “it wasn’t preventing your wound from healing, but preventing _you_ from healing yourself with that freaky superfast healing ability of yours.”

“Somewhat. It was preventing me—the dam—from refilling to my usual capacity, thus not having enough magic in me for my physical wound to heal.”

“So forests and stuff, they’re just what, a giant source of magic for you?”

“Nature,” Cas corrected. “Harnessing the essence of nature is usually as natural to me as breathing. It’s not something I do consciously—my body is tuned with it to retain the power.”

“Right,” Dean said, the pieces of information clicking in place as the whole mechanism made more sense. “Is that how you did the whole invisible thing without lying in bed for 3 days afterwards? ‘Cause us humans, most of us don’t have the stamina to keep up with using magic without getting totally wiped.” He thought back to Sam, who regularly kept up with his physical training so he had enough stamina to use magic without exhausting himself.

“Mostly.”

“How do you even make yourself invisible? That’s not magic I’ve ever heard about.”

“All I did was use to my advantage what’s already know to you as ‘magic,’” Cas explained. “It’s more about manipulating the light waves to my liking and affecting how it reflects off my body to create a blind spot from the opponent’s point of view.”

“Huh.” Dean mulled over it. “That’s pretty awesome, Cas.”

“I can explain it to you in more detail if you’d like—”

“Nah, I’m good.” Dean chuckled. “Do all dragons know this stuff, or are you just the nerdy one?”

Cas huffed. “I _have_ been told that on occasions by one of my closer brothers, but no. My father was a scholar, and I was always interested in his studies.”

“Dragons have scholars?”

“We have rules and order and a society, just as you do.”

“Huh.”

The crickets chirped somewhere out the window. It was after Midsummer, but the night chills had Dean sink further into the bed.

“You still haven’t asked what you want to know, Dean.”

It wasn’t accusatory, but Dean still flinched. He opened his mouth in hesitation.

“That spell you used to um, harness the essence of the forest we were in, it has the potential for you to harness all this… this untapped power to yourself,” Dean said carefully, feeling like he was treading on ice. “So how come you haven’t?”

“Because I don’t need that much power,” Cas replied, sounding a little surprised Dean would even ask. “What would I even do with it?”

Oh.

“I don’t know,” Dean muttered, relief coursing through his body. “You could take over the world or something.”

Cas snorted. “I suppose, but I don’t need it.”

He was a virtual stranger. Yet, Dean knew he was as safe as he could get right here, right now, lying beside him underneath the sweaty-ass sheets with warmth radiating off him like nobody’s business.

Dean didn’t say anything in return before he slipped into sleep, feeling safer than he had in ages.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Dean rolled over to a cold, unoccupied bed. He blinked up at the sunlight and wondered how long he’d slept in if he was up after _Cas_ , because Cas was one grumpy motherfucker in the morning. It must be sometime in the afternoon at the very least.

Just as he was contemplating on getting out of bed, the door creaked open to reveal Cas with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Briefly recalling his first, um, _official_ meeting with Cas in his non-dragon form, Dean was glad to see Cas had the decency to cover himself up this time.

He eyed the lean, muscled figure in front of him wearing nothing but a god damn _towel_. Cas’s dark hair was still dripping with water, and Dean couldn’t even dare to move in case his morning wood was evident from underneath the covers.

“Good morning,” Cas greeted, disheveling his hair completely during an attempt to dry it out, raking through it with his fingers.

Dean cleared his throat, willing it to work despite the sight. “Morning.”

He looked away as Cas walked past him to get to his pile of clothing, leaving a trail of scents for Dean to breathe in. Regular, soapy smell mixed with something he couldn’t quite put a finger to, and he vaguely wondered if dragons had some sort of special scent to them (then again, maybe this place just had real quality soap).

Cas dropped his towel to the floor in favour of bending down to pick up his pants, and Dean groaned in outrage. “ _Dude_ , d’you mind?”

Cas turned around and Dean directed his gaze to the corner of the room. “Oh. I apologize.” He heard a bit of shuffling, and when Dean cautiously glanced back, he had the towel firmly wrapped around his waist. “I’m not used to others being uncomfortable in my presence when I’m unclothed.”

“Yeah, well. Thank gods for towels.”

“Actually, the lady who rented out the room to us last night was the one to give it to me on the way back here.”

Dean grimaced. “What did I tell you about not attracting attention, man?”

Cas scowled at the reminder, maybe finally understanding just how much effort it was going to take from his part if it meant he had to be clothed at all times. Apparently bending light to his will was no problem, but wearing clothes was too much effort.

Dean sighed.

 

 

~*~

 

 

After Dean cleaned himself up, they went out to the bazaar for provisions and supplies.

“But first,” Dean said, looking for an adequate shop as they walked along the stone pavement, “we’re going to get you some clothes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re wearing my clothes, Cas.”

“But I _like_ these.” Cas unconsciously reached up to the edge of his shirt.

“Damn right you do. They’re only the finest quality you can find around here. Doesn’t mean you’re going to be wearing one outfit the whole time we’re travelling together. Besides, who says no to free clothes?”

Cas wrinkled his nose in distaste, but didn’t complain further when they walked into a shop to find racks of clothes filling up the entire store. After making sure he still had the pouch of gold Dean gave him last night, Dean left him to buy some bread, cheese and beef jerky as usual. Maybe some local varieties, if they had any.

“Hello.” A short girl came out to the counter with a smile that probably bedazzled passing through travellers. “Name’s Ava.”

“Morning, Ava.” Dean grinned back his best smile, and listed the items he needed. She nodded and jotted everything down, and Dean leaned against the counter while she fetched the stuff, keeping himself occupied with a quick harmless survey around the store. There was a section of magical ingredients in display, the smell of herbs floating all the way over to where Dean stood.

Sam and Gabe always had that herb smell stuck to them everywhere they went. Their hair was always in a bit of a frazzle because of the heat involved with some of the spells.

His thoughts drifted to Jo and Ellen (was Jo still insistent on becoming one of the knights?), Kevin and Linda (was she still pushing him to be her successor as governor of International Affairs, and was he still opposing her?), Benny (he missed him), Victor (he missed him too), Jody and Alex (were Alex and Donna getting along now?), Charlie (he hoped she was doing well, hopefully not getting into too much trouble while she was travelling around with Dorothy)… People who he knew he could trust and love and meant _home_. He hated being away from them, hated that Metatron was the root of all this, and he could do nothing but keep himself alive until he found some princess he’d never met before so they could get married and have tiny little humans together.

Dean scowled at the counter, hating that he reminded himself of exactly what he was out here for in the first place. Why didn’t anyone think of whether he _wanted_ to rescue the princess anyway? Why was it always a princess, too? Why not a _prince_? In fact, why was not having a Happy Ending at the age of twenty-nine a legitimate fucking excuse to kick him out of his own fucking kingdom with a smile plastered on Metatron’s face?

What the hell was wrong with people? God damn it.

“Dean,” Cas called from right behind him, and Dean jumped with a yelp.

“For _fuck’s_ sake, Cas!” Dean gritted, needlessly grasping his chest to calm his heart down. “Could you stop doing that?”

Cas blinked. “Apologies.”

“Nevermind. I—see you got your clothes,” Dean said with difficulty, eyeing the guy up and down.

The pants were… acceptable, at least. “Out of all the clothes in that shop, you somehow managed to pick out the fugliest ones.”

Cas scowled, and Dean was starting to wonder if that was his default face, or if it was only when Dean was around. “ _I_ like it.”

“That colour looks like someone threw up and smeared it all over your shirt.”

Cas wrinkled his nose, but before he could respond, Ava interrupted by putting the package on the counter with some effort. “There you go. Where’re you folks headed anyway?”

Dean turned away from Cas’s glare and counted out the coins. “West.”

“Oh?” Ava chinned her hands. “What for? Lots of folks heading that way these days, it seems.”

“Visiting some relatives,” He replied with a grin, the coins clanking against each other as they fell into her hands. “Thanks again, sweetheart.”

Carrying the packaging in hand, Dean and Cas walked back around the opposite side of town to get back to the inn, with merchants selling their goods littered all on the side of the street. Dean wasn’t really planning on stopping, but one of the merchants selling little trinkets caught Cas’s attention.

There were jewelleries of all kinds. Earrings, bracelets, nose hooks, anklets and necklaces, all made with silver and bronze and other common metals. Dean’s eyes roamed through each section, not really paying much interest in them. He knew there wasn’t really anything he wanted there, and nobody back home would’ve really cared for it. He briefly considered getting Sam a hairpin as a joke, but knowing him he’d probably actually wear it as payback.

His eyes landed on the pendant section, and couldn’t help but smile when he spotted a small silver dragon pendant with etched scales on its body and a tiny blue gemstone as its eye. It was cheap looking, something generic enough to find anywhere with a jewellery booth.

“Hey, how much for this?” Dean asked the vendor, and Cas looked up from the display at the sound of Dean’s voice. When he saw what Dean was holding, he rolled his eyes and redirected his gaze back to the display. 

The vendor blinked up at Dean’s face. “Oh, that one.” He gestured the price with his fingers. “It’ll bring ye good fortune and protection from evil, ay. Also works as a good luck charm.”

“Will it, now?” Dean said over Cas’s unimpressed sigh.

After Dean paid for it and was handed a black piece of leather to tie the pendant up, he wordlessly handed it to Cas with a smirk. Cas stared at it completely unimpressed, and Dean cracked into a laugh.

“This looks nothing like me,” Cas grumbled, holding it up in front of him.

“What are you talking about? It’s like a replica.”

Cas squinted, and Dean chuckled, nudging his side. “C’mon, it’s hilarious.”

“It looks like a winged goat with a reptile tail.”

Dean howled with laughter, having to pause on their way to stop _laughing_ , but Cas leaned over and looked at him all puzzled while looking completely ridiculous, and Dean couldn’t help but laugh even _harder_. He was in tears by the time he looked back up, and people were staring at them both. Cas seemed amused, at least. He was even wearing the necklace, a little bump underneath his shirt, and Dean felt a strange surge of fondness at the sight.

After dinner, with Cas ordering another weird-ass dish and then _pie_ , they retired to their room. They discussed their future routes in a hush over Dean’s beat-up map until Cas was yawning up a storm, and Dean called it a night. Dean took a little longer in the bath this time, letting himself relax and not worry about Cas taking off with his stuff. He snuck into the room afterwards so as not to wake Cas up—who was already sound asleep—and slipped under the cover in his best attempt to not rouse him.

As he drifted to sleep with Cas’s body steadily rising and falling behind him, he wondered how it was only yesterday that he was telling himself Cas was a tool to be used, and how that was changing at a dangerous rate.

To say Dean had mixed feelings about it would be an understatement.


	4. In Which Dean and Castiel Resume Their Quests

“Dean,” a voice called. “ _Dean_.”

Someone touched his left shoulder, and Dean’s hand was on him before the opponent could pull away. His eyes still unfocused in the dark, he blinked, taking in big gulps of ragged breaths as the tension drained out of his body in recognition. “Cas?” he croaked.

“Yes,” he hushed, gently removing Dean’s grasp on his collar and pushing the dagger away from his throat. Dean’s hands went limp against his sides.

“You don’t need me to walk you to the toilet, do you?” Dean rubbed his eyes, ignoring Cas’s stare on the weapon in his hand.

Cas rolled his eyes. “Hardly. Put on your boots.”

Only then did Dean realize Cas was carrying his bag. “What’s goin’ on?”

“We’re leaving.”

“Yeah, I see that. _Why_?”

“They’re taking turns sleeping, but all of them are worn out from constantly having to check on us. If we leave right now, we’ll be at least few hours ahead of them before they notice we’re gone.”

Dean stared at Cas, who was holding himself in ease in front of him. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he told Cas that there were people out to kill him, but actually planning out an escape route without discussing with him was not it.

He didn’t react, and instead sat on his bed with his limbs still loose from sleep. Cas seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, but he wasn’t urging Dean along to get a move on either. It was what Dean would’ve done if he wanted someone to panic enough to act on his command without much thought, but Cas just kinda stood there carrying all of their bags, staring at Dean as Dean stared back at him.

Dean pulled his boots on. “And to think I was hoping to grab breakfast before we left,” he mumbled.

He was about to make his way to the door when Cas shook his head slightly and pointed at the window. Dean raised his eyebrows, but didn’t question it as Cas put a finger to his lips. They were only on the second floor, but Dean still gulped at the height. Sensing the hesitation, Cas huffed and scooped Dean into his arms. Before Dean could let out an embarrassing sound, Cas put a hand over his mouth to silence him.

Cas leapt out of the window, and Dean was glad for the hand over his mouth. It didn’t escape Dean’s thoughts that Cas was carrying him and his bag as well as their provisions, and Dean expected a loud noise when they landed. He was caught off guard when Cas’s wings flapped out from his back, and they hovered about a foot before the ground, landing with barely a tap. The wings seemed smaller than when he was in his dragon form, so maybe they proportioned themselves depending on Cas’s physical form. Dean watched, mesmerized at how they twitched, and reeled back in asking whether he could touch them before Cas folded them back in.

Dean climbed out of Cas’s grip, and thought up of something. He gestured for Cas to follow, and quietly tiptoed into the stable. He grabbed two of the nearest fit-looking horses and led them outside, hoping they wouldn’t make any sounds. Contrary to Dean’s beliefs, the horses were a little _too_ quiet, leaving Dean to suspect they could somehow sense how powerful Cas really was. He figured it must be a predator-prey thing, though Dean’s reaction wasn’t too far off from theirs when he first met Cas, so it wasn’t like he was on any ground to judge.

They rode for hours, the sun rising in front of them. They reached the stream they had planned on reaching last night while they established daily goals of reaching a certain distance, and rested when the sun was near the top of the sky while the horses drank from it.

“We should probably let these guys go sometime before we reach the next town,” Dean said. “They’ll be able to know we’re there when they see the missing horses there.”

Cas nodded. “You lied to that woman at the store.”

“Who, that Ava girl?”

Cas nodded again, tearing a little piece of his beef jerky off.

“She’ll probably end up telling one way or another, so might as well direct them to the opposite way.” He chuckled, wishing he was there to see whoever it was to realize their mistake of chasing after them in the wrong direction. He bumped his shoulder against Cas in a playful nudge in his good mood. “Good thinking getting us out at the crack of dawn. We make a good team, Cas.”

“A dragon and a knight as a team,” Cas said dryly, though Dean detected a faint humour behind the statement.

Dean shrugged. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I’m a prince, not a knight.”

Cas whipped his head and blinked. “Prince?” he echoed.

“Well, king, but yeah. Royalty, in the flesh.”

He squinted at him. “And you’re the eldest?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he drawled, his good mood suddenly soured. He didn’t know why he thought Cas would be okay with this, but Cas’s reaction at being told the princess’s saving grace was the oldest kid should’ve been something Dean expected. After all, the eldest always failed on what they set out to do, and set an example for the youngest. Usually. “I’m not on this quest—journey— _whatever_ it is out of my free will, alright? I get along with my brother just fine, and I opposed this, and _Sam_ ’s the one that said I should, so here I am.”

“And Sam is your…”

“He’s the youngest.” Dean smiled devoid of humour. “So things with that princess of yours should be fine. And I’m not doing this out of jealousy or some crap, so I’m not going to end up throwing myself off the cliff by the end of this trip or anything. You kinda did that for me already, anyway.”

Cas scowled. “I understand from our short time together that your regards for these rules aren’t exactly high—”

“Understatement.”

“—but they exist for a _reason,_ ” Cas said. “Their values are significant and necessary. They matter.”

“This crap exist because people chose to stay stagnant, Cas.” Cas looked taken aback at Dean’s outburst, but he did nothing to intervene. “People think we have to act on these rules based on what everyone used to do thousands of years ago, and they fucking badmouth someone because of what people used to think millennia ago. You know what maters over some socially constructed opinions? _People_.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll admit that it brings some kind of fucked up order and stuff to the world. I get it.” Dean crumbled a bit of bread between his fingers. “But when it gets to the point where some rules made up by people who’re already dead is _killing_ people _now_ —” Dean let out a humourless snort. “Then that’s just some fucked up bullshit opinion meant to cover up some assholes. Traditional values can suck my fucking dick.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Cas, _no,_ I don’t mean that literally—”

“No, I mean. Someone you know died at the expense of upholding the traditional values over their lives.”

Dean fixed his gaze on Cas, which was a mistake, because he didn’t want to stare at his expression that wasn’t accusing nor full of pity. He was just… staring, merely regarding Dean in that curious way of his, with his head a little tilted and his eyes in little squints.

Dean felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, exhaustion cloaking over him. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he and Sam had started fighting this… this _war_ , and it was absolutely exhausting to constantly be on the run, first away from Lucifer and away from Michael years ago when they’d lost Mary and John, and now Metatron and his douche-y followers. He’d been guarding himself against the rest of the world for so long that he didn’t even know where to _begin_ , where to even _start_ , because everyone that knew him already knew, and having to talk about it to someone who hadn’t been that part of his life was… having to _talk about it_.

Not here. It was too open here under the greens with the sunlight screening through the canopy, too cheerful of an atmosphere with the birds singing and the clear stream running beneath their feet and too much of everything for Dean to even begin opening that baggage.

“I’ll pass on that question,” Dean clipped, and Cas blinked until he seemingly remembered their game from before.

“I didn’t realize we were still playing,” Cas said dryly.

“Yeah, well, change of rules.” Dean stretched. “C’mon, let’s get few more hours in and we’ll let these guys go.”

For the rest of the ride, Cas didn’t comment. Dean stayed silent.

 

 

~*~

 

 

They let the horses go a few miles away from arriving at a new town. Dean hated walking especially because he felt like a giant, slow-moving target, but he gritted his teeth and kept up his pace as fast as he could. Even with Cas by his side, he didn’t want to run into any unnecessary trouble.

It was a quick stop at the next village, and they were off again. Dean didn’t see signs of anyone on their trails during their stay there, and Cas made no mention of them either, so Dean figured the pair of them would have the lead for few more days before Metatron’ caught up to them. He hoped to keep it that way. 

The closer they got to the border, the more signs of it Dean saw. The nearest town to the castle just before the lakes had souvenir shops scattered all across the town, with little princesses inside miniature castles and towels that had some clever tagline about rescuing the princess. Really, imprisoned princess up in a tower for years and these people decided to make merchandise out of her. Dean left that particular town with a certain degree of disgust. 

“There should be a bridge we can take to cross the lake over to the other side of the land,” Cas explained as Dean tried his best to not throw the flint across the forest. 

“You mean the bridge that’s between the borders.” 

“Yes.” Cas watched with amusement as Dean struggled with striking the spark for the fire and almost punched himself in the face. “Otherwise we’ll have to hike through the cliffs.” 

“And we don’t want to risk dying just yet.”

“No,” Cas said, a corner of his lips lifting. “Not dying would be preferable.”

“So I guess we can look for that guide that’ll lead us through the forest after that—For _fuck’s sake_ —” 

Cas reached out and laid a gentle hand on Dean’s tense shoulders. “Let me.”

Dean slumped onto the ground, and watched with curiosity as Cas picked up one of the logs. He blew a gentle stream of fire onto the log like some kind of a street stunt, except Dean knew this was the real deal. The steady stream of fire licked around the log, and Dean could hear the water sizzle out of it. He shooed away a mosquito that was happily sucking on his blood, and slapped his leg with a grunt. The closer they got to the waterfront the more mosquitoes there were, and Dean was fucking itchy all over the place.

It wasn’t long before the log caught on fire, and Cas stuffed the burning thing into the middle of the stack of logs Dean had previously built. The twigs and leaves caught on fire almost instantly, blazing long with the piece of log Cas had lit. Soon, the fire licked and flickered against the pink and purple sky.

Dean grinned. “Dude.” 

Cas shrugged, dusting off his hands. Show off. 

They had a steady fire going, and Dean cooked the fish they’d caught earlier by the river—well, Cas caught them; Dean mostly flailed in the water in an attempt to catch them until Cas kicked him out for scaring the fish away—after they found a spot to settle down for the night. He dangled the bits of entrails onto a stick and tossed them into the fire, and curled up beside the fire pit as he listened to the occasional sizzle from the fish oil. 

Dean felt his protesting muscles relax at the steady crackle of the fire, Cas’s profile in the corner of his eyes. It was nice—really, _really_ nice—to travel with someone who could not only take care of themselves, but was actually powerful enough to withstand any real threats in the woods. It was nice to not constantly check to make sure the fire wasn’t drawing too much unwanted attention in the dark, and Dean could relax while he nibbled on the cooked fish bits. It tasted bland without any salt. 

He let out a yawn with a stretch, and curled into his sleeping bag. If it wasn’t for the fact he was heading towards his potential (unwanted) bride, he could almost chalk up the moment as recreational camping. 

Cas’s face contrasted against the fire and the dark behind him, and Dean watched from the ground as the flames danced in front of his face. It’d been few days since they talked anything about Dean’s past, and since then he didn’t show an inkling of interest in the subject. Dean was grateful for it. 

As if he heard Dean’s thoughts, Cas turned his eyes away from the fire to fix them on Dean. He kinda felt like a creeper being caught staring at the guy, but then again, their first meeting under daylight was because Cas decided to stalk him half naked while he was invisible, so… being caught staring probably wasn’t half as bad. Not that Cas seemed to really understand—or care—about human social etiquettes.

Cas cocked his head slightly. “What are you thinking about?”

Dean tucked his hand under his chin, and stared at Cas some more as they didn’t break eye contact. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“Our interactions have been nothing but questions.” 

“ _You’re_ nothing but questions.” Cas stared impassively, and Dean flushed at how childish he felt. “Shut up.” 

Cas poked at the fire with a stick, sending embers into the air. He had a little quirk evident on his lips. This fucker. “What did you want to ask me?” 

Dean regarded him a little before going for it. “How’d you get hurt anyway? Before, I mean. Back when I found you in the cave. You can grab blades no problem, but you were rendered useless somehow. And it wasn’t like the poison was doing things to you until I found you, right?” 

Cas frowned the creases on his forehead defined by the fire. “A knight.”

Dean sat up a little straighter. 

“He must’ve had a powerful fairy godmother. I’m not sure.” Cas threw a little branch into the fire and watched as it burned. “He’d somehow acquired poisonous arrows that could pierce a dragon’s scale, and you saw what effects the poison had on me. Its actual purpose was useless since he ended up getting my stomach anyway, but the poison slowly spreading through me almost killed me.” 

Dean nodded. “What happened to the guy?” 

Cas stared at Dean knowingly, and Dean gulped down his rational fear. “Right.” 

“It was him, or me,” Cas said. “We were only being faithful to our roles.” 

“And you’re what, _proud_ of that?” 

“Of course not,” Cas snapped. “Are you not on this very quest because of this exact reason? To fulfil your role?” 

“That’s not why—” Dean bit back, instead choosing to glare at Cas over the fire, who met his glare with an equally intimating one. 

The silence that followed was suffocating. Dean shuffled in his sleeping bag, suddenly too hot and uncomfortable. He debated whether he should say something, but decided against it in case it started another inevitable argument. 

Of course this was to fulfil his role. It wasn’t like he was doing exactly what Metatron wanted him to do, leave an empty throne behind and be called and irresponsible ruler if he ever went back without something to show for the absence. It wasn’t like he was worried out of his mind about how Sam and Bobby were faring without him in the kingdom, especially since he’d had no contacts from them since the day he left. 

“Right. Great talk.” He slumped further into his sleeping bag with no further words, and resolutely closed his eyes shut against the bright bonfire and Cas’s demanding presence.

Cas didn’t say anything because he was just as much of a grumpy asshole as Dean was. Dean was glad for it, and he huddled into the sleeping bag.

 

 

~*~

 

 

There was a bit of a hike before they arrived at the border ( _fuck_ , Sam was right about him being out of shape but damn it if he was ever going to admit that to him). The mood between them was still sour from last night, and neither tried to engage in conversation. Dean kicked at himself for even asking the stupid question in the first place, because honestly, he missed the company.

Dean cleared his throat when they passed the sign that read ‘halfway point to the border’. “So. Um. I need you to pretend to be human when we get there.”

Cas stopped in his track and turned around with a frown that was equal parts inquisitive and annoyed. “Why?”

“Think about it, man. We haven’t seen dragons around in ages and I don’t even know if we have regulated protocols that aren’t outdated like, thousands of years for when dragons pass between borders.”

The frown turned into a scowl. “I’ve never had to abide to humans’ rules before. What makes you think I’d do that now?” 

“Well,” Dean drawled out, “the regulation is generally more strict once people realize you’re a magical creature, not to mention all the paper work we’d have to deal with; and if we fill out the paperwork, I’d have to verify for you as the human guardian and the government will track our travels until you’re registered as the other country’s occupation.”

“You _are_ the government.”

“Yeah, but so’s Meta—my opponent.” 

“We could fly over it.” 

“We’d be caught by the barrier over the border. You know, in case the things that think the same way you do try to illegally cross the border.” 

“So lying doesn’t make this illegal,” Cas said dryly. 

“Hey, you want me to rescue that princess without dying on the way, you’re gonna have to play by the rules sometimes. You gotta do what you gotta do, right?” 

The toll gate wasn’t much further off, and soon it was within their sight. It was the only entrance that led to a series of bridges which connected the various islands along the way to the other side of the lake. The lake was deep enough for someone to drown in, but shallow enough for the rocks to hit a ferry’s bottom, resulting in the bridge. Sucked for travellers, since crossing it took basically the whole day for the able-bodied. 

“Okay, remember what I told you,” Dean hushed firmly as they approached the toll gate. 

“I’m not a child,” Cas gritted back, and Dean backed off with his hands up in the air. 

The toll gate officer was some green sprout kid named Alfie. He was alone at the station, which relieved Dean, but he was also a newbie with a nerve of butter left out in the sun for too long, and he inspected thoroughly, taking longer than Dean liked with the magic detector to see if he was human as he claimed to be. 

Alfie gestured for Cas with his wand in hand when Dean passed, the little green orb that detected magic dull in colour around Dean’s vicinity. 

“Please step right over here, sir.” He gestured over to Cas, who stood stiffly in place. “Alright, sir, please extend your arms. I’ll just be scanning for any illegal items and make sure you’re human.” 

Cas threw an uneasy glance at Dean, and Dean wondered what was wrong. Maybe he was worried the item he was delivering would be revealed? Dean had to admit that he was curious, but he supposed some things were better kept private, especially since Cas seemed reluctant to share. 

He started to direct the orb at Cas, and the little cracking sound was the only warning Dean received before the orb _exploded_ , the shards practically lethal.

“Uh…” Alfie looked back and forth between his now destroyed wand and Cas, who was wide-eyed. “Sir... Are you sure you’re hundred percent human?” 

“Uh. Yes.” Cas shot a panicked glance at Dean, and Dean almost groaned, because really? Powerful ancient dude who went around breaking magical instruments just by being near them, you’d think he’d know how to lie better than that.

“Because, um, sorry to break it to you sir, but uh…” Alfie wiped a single sweat rolling down the side of his face. It was humid by the lakefront, and Dean’s shirt was sticking to his back. They were going to be found out, they were going to be found out and they were so _screwed_ —“Have you considered the, er… Possibility that one of your parents weren’t… Um, human?”

“Are you suggesting my parents have... committed adultery?” 

“Well, I mean—” Alfie was sweating up a storm now, and Dean covered his snort-laugh with a cough, ignoring Cas’s exasperated glance thrown his way. Okay, Alfie wasn’t too perceptive (and what was up with that? He was the international border officer for fuck’s sake—Dean was going to have to look into hiring smarter officers when he was back home) so getting out of the situation shouldn’t be too hard— 

A piercing sound shot through the air and a _thunk_ echoed as the arrow hit the headboard just above Dean’s head. 

“What the fu—” 

Another arrow shot through the air, missing Dean only by a hair this time. What surprised him the most was Alfie grabbing both of them with no hesitation and rushing them to crouch down behind the toll gate booth.

“It’s okay,” Alfie assured with soothing voice through the rain of arrows hitting the gate, as if Dean and Cas were frightened animals, and no, Dean doubted anything was okay because those fuckers were back, but maybe he should rethink getting Alfie replaced. “I’ll call reinforcement as soon as I can, but I promise to keep you safe until then.” 

Dean tugged his wrist free out of his grip. “Look, that’s heartwarming and all but if you’d just let us cross the border—” 

“No!” Alfie’s voice cracked at the hitch. “If you cross the border now while we’re under attack, it could turn into an international problem!” 

“Weren’t you just going on about keeping us safe or something?” Dean said dryly. 

Alfie winced. “Yes, but… I mean, you’d be safer here than trying to escape anyway, right?” 

Dean was about to argue that no, since him leaving would probably keep _Alfie_ safer, but Cas held up a hand to silence them both. “It’s too quiet.”

Dean and Alfie both strained their ears to pick up any sounds, but there were none; just as Cas had stated. The downpour arrows had abruptly stopped, and despite Alfie’s protesting tug on his shirt, Dean risked a peek from the side.

Zeke stood at the front, the rest of the crowd installing what seemed like barrels of oil across the bridge. “Hear me, gatekeeper.” He roared. “Give us the light-haired man, and we will reward you with great fortune.” 

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Dean mumbled. The old villain speech? Really? 

“Resist, and we will burn this bridge down.” 

Alfie paled. “What do I _do_?” he whispered. “This was never in the manual.” 

“You were trained out of a _manual_?” 

“My superiors don’t have enough time to train me for every single potential situations.” 

“Uh, I’d say being under attack is a pretty big one to be trained for.” 

“We haven’t had to worry about being under attack since of King Dean ascended to the throne,” Alfie whined. “He’s been keeping peace left and right, cleaning up after King John and it’s been peaceful ever since.” 

What the hell. Obviously that was going to have to change as soon as Dean went back home. Just because he’d been, well, cleaning up John’s mess would be an overstatement—all he’d been doing was trying to rule while keeping the majority of the people happy—but this didn’t mean they shouldn’t be _prepared_.  “Okay. Who the fuck is your superior?” 

“Zachariah. Zachariah Adler.” 

Well that guy was gonna get his ass fired. “Alright, Alfie, work with me here. What are you supposed to do under an emergency?” 

Alfie wringed his hands. “I’m supposed to call for help if I can, but I can’t do that right now—” 

“Okay, but do you have any long-range weapons? Any at all?” 

“Dean.” 

Alfie shook his head. Dean threw his hands in exasperation. “You’re a fucking international border guard, and you don’t have one single weapon on you? What is—” 

“ _Dean_.” 

“ _What?”_ he snapped, swatting Cas’s hand away. 

“That,” Cas glanced at Alfie, “uh, man. I know him.” 

“Who?” 

“The man at the front.” 

“Zeke?” 

Cas stood up without bothering to explain any further despite Dean’s vocal protest, stepping out in front of the crowd. 

“Is he insane?” Alfie hissed, but Dean stayed where he was, watching intently. What the hell was he doing? 

Zeke noticed Cas trailing towards him without any hesitation in his steps, and held his hands up to signal a stop to his alarmed lackeys about to open fire. 

“Castiel,” Zeke said, almost in wonder, and what the hell? “It is good to see you, brother.” 

….Brother? 

“And you, Gadreel.” Cas glanced back at where Dean and Alfie were. 

Oh, for fuck’s sake— 

“You have _got_ to be fucking _kidding_ me,” Dean muttered. 

“What brings you here?” Zeke—Gadreel—whatever the shitlord’s name was, said. 

“I’m travelling with the human you seek.” 

Gadreel frowned. “But why?” 

“I should be asking you why you’re doing this instead,” Cas shot back. “You are one of the gentlest brothers I know, Gadreel. Why are you participating in such a barbaric act?” 

Dean snorted. Sure, Ze—Gadreel wasn’t a bad guy if the past year he’d known him was anything to go by, but knowing he’d been working for Metatron this whole time? Dean wasn’t quick to call Gadreel anything good. Despite his tendency to not trust anything that moved within the castle, the betrayal still stung when he first saw him by the waterfall. 

And to think, he was in such close proximity with a dragon the past whole year. 

“I swore,” Gadreel replied, “to help Metatron. You understand why I cannot back out of my promise.” 

“No. There must be a reason behind your oath of allegiance to this Metatron. It’s not something we declare lightly, and you know that.” 

Gadreel clenched his jaw. “Metatron, he’s—he healed me when I was wounded. In turn, I vowed to help him in the future. Now move aside, brother, or I will have to—” 

“To what, Gadreel? You’ll kill your own kin?” Cas shook his head. “You must know how wrong all this is.” 

“I know that,” Gadreel snapped. They stared at each other, oblivious to the rest of the world. Dean wanted to cough if it meant the end of the deafening silence. Gadreel’s shoulders slumped in dejection. “He knows of Abner.” 

Okay, who the fuck was Abner? For fuck’s sake, Dean was starting to get pretty pissed off with all the talking without him knowing what the hell was going on. 

The named seemed to mean something to Cas though, what with how he perked up. 

“Please, move aside, Castiel. I don’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.” 

“We can help you, Gadreel. Surely there must be a way to protect Abner and his family from Metatron.” 

“I…” 

“You’ve already done more than enough to repay your debt to him. Can’t you see that Metatron is asking for more than what he’s done for you?” 

Oh, shit, Cas was trying to convince the guy to help them, and it actually seemed to be working by the looks of hesitation clear on Gadreel’s face for everyone to see. Dean wasn’t sure if he could ever believe him again—especially after all the shit that’d gone down before—but if Cas trusted him, then… Well, Dean would cross that bridge when they got there— 

“ _HEY!_ ” Dean roared in horror as he watched the blade disappear into Gadreel’s back. Before he could reach him, Cas was already on his collapsing form, cushioning his fall. 

“Shit, shit, shit.” Dean scrambled for the wound, putting as much pressure onto his neck as he could. Even if Gadreel was a dragon, a wound to the back couldn’t be anything but fatal. “Cas, what can I— _CAS_!” Dean shielded his face from the overwhelming heat of Cas’s fire, the heat scorching his arm hair off. 

Cas was _livid_. Holy shit, he was roaring fire at anyone he laid eyes on, trying to find the culprit that stabbed Gadreel in the back. It reminded Dean of back when they first met, when he’d tried to treat his wound and he flipped the fuck out, except about ten times worse. 

He let out a screech and a wail, and everyone dropped to the ground covering their ears. There was some kind of an explosion to the side, but Dean couldn’t risk taking his eyes off of Cas in case— 

In case what? In case he got rid of everyone after Dean trying to kill him? They stabbed Gadreel just as he was about to change his mind—probably on Metatron’s orders—after all. They were the reason why Dean couldn’t sleep for more than four hours per day, shivering in the dawn and huddling in the dark, the reason why Impala was dead and why he practically had to run on all fours when he was chased by those damn dogs. Why shouldn’t they deserve to die? Why _not_ let the ravaging dragon kill them all, and chalk it up as self-defense? 

He remembered Cas’s hardened face when he confessed to killing that knight; his usual stupid dorky ass face when he was proudly wearing that puke-coloured shirt. 

Damn it. God fucking damn it. 

“CAS,” Dean tried to no avail. He laid Gadreel down as gently as he could (he was still breathing so he should be fine for two seconds, right?), and approached Cas from the side so he saw him in his peripheral vision and not accidentally kill him. He grabbed Cas’s shoulder and turned him around. “ _Cas_.” 

There was something wild about his eyes, the way they weren’t focused that freaked him the fuck out, but Dean only squeezed his shoulder tighter. “Hey, buddy, calm _down_. He’s still alive, alright? You need to tell me what to do, or he really could be dead any moment.” 

Cas’s nostrils flared. “Dean, they—” 

“I know, man. I get it, alright? I do.” Dean glanced behind Cas. “But more bloodshed isn’t the answer, and you know that.” 

Cas’s jaw clenched, and he breathed out slowly. His hands shot up to grip the bump underneath his shirt, and Dean realized he was using that ugly ass pendant to ground himself. Nobody else dared to move in case Cas lashed out again, and honestly, Dean was pretty sure they were silently thanking him for calming him down. 

Speaking of. Dean pulled his sword out and pointed at the rest of the crowd. “You ever think of coming close to us again,” he gestured the sword at Cas, “I’ll let him be the next time.” 

One of them hesitated. “You wouldn’t.” 

Dean raised his eyebrows. What were they, lackey number 1 and 2 with lame ass lines? “You wanna test that theory in the future, let me know.” When they didn’t move, Dean dismissed them with a flick of a hand. “Get out of here. I’m sick of seeing your faces.”

They slowly backtracked, and ran in the opposite direction once they were sure Dean and Cas couldn’t reach them. Well, that was one problem solved for now, then. 

Dean cleaned Gadreel’s wound with lake water while Cas ventured out to find some stuff that’d help speed up the healing process. Apparently for dragons, being stabbed in the back with a regular knife wasn’t so much as deadly as inconvenient. 

Gadreel mumbled something, incoherent even when Dean strained his ears. “What?” 

“I’m sorry,” Gadreel said louder, crooking his neck as Dean dabbed on his back with a cloth. “For everything. I… I know my apology doesn’t change anything—” 

“It doesn’t,” Dean replied firmly. “Who’s Abner?” 

Gadreel’s entire body relaxed at the name alone. “A friend.” 

“You don’t go and set out to kill someone for just a _friend_ , man. C’mon,” Dean nudged him a little, and Gadreel grunted in pain, “what’s so special about him that you risked your life for?” 

He could see Gadreel’s frown from where he was. “If a friend of yours was threatened, would you not also defend them risking your life, Dean Winchester?” 

“Yeah, okay, but you’re not telling me who Abner really means to you.”

Gadreel smiled sadly. “No, I suppose not.” 

“Is he cute?” 

That induced a chuckle out of him. “Very.” 

Dean dabbed the wound thoroughly, moving onto sterilizing it now. “Does he know?” he asked. 

“No,” Gadreel said quietly. “I don’t intend to tell him.” 

“Why not? He doesn’t swing that way or…?” 

Gadreel huffed. “He’s married. With children. He’s happy.” 

“Oh.” 

“I’ve made peace with my situation,” Gadreel replied. “As long as he is happy and remains in my life, I’m also happy.” 

Dean nodded. “Listen to me.” 

Gadreel craned his neck in curiosity. 

“If you come near Sam and me or anybody else I care about ever again, I will kill Abner and his entire family, and burn their house to the ground.” Dean gripped tighter onto the blood-stained cloth. “If you think about getting help from Cas or so much as breathe a word to him about this, I’ll make sure to tell Abner about your not so friendly feelings for him right before I personally slit his throat.” 

Gadreel seemed stricken with horror, but recovered himself at an impressive speed. “If you touch a— _hair_ on Abner and his family, I will—” 

“I’m going to mind my own business as long as you stay away from us. I don’t give a fuck on what you do out there. Hell, you can fuck right off and build a house right beside him and his family for all I care. It’d make it easier for me to keep tabs on you anyway.” 

Gadreel shook his head. “You are not your father, Dean. You would never have civilians involved.” 

Dean leaned closer, making sure to hover above him and ignoring the nausea. “Maybe not. But if you thought we’d be good after a piss-poor apology and a year of going behind my back making mine and Sam’s lives into hell this whole time, you thought wrong. The only reason why I’m not finishing the half-assed job that Metatron’s guy did is because you’re Cas’s brother.” 

Gadreel fell silent, and Dean thought that was that, until he spoke again. “I do regret it,” he said quietly. “I _am_ truly sorry.” 

“I don’t fucking care,” Dean replied. 

When Cas came back from the forest, he seemed puzzled by the cold atmosphere between Dean and Gadreel, but he didn’t question it further than to raise an inquisitive eyebrow. He rubbed the herb over the wound and recited few words, and again, Dean couldn’t make the words out even though he knew Cas was speaking them.

“Thank you, Castiel.” Gadreel said, pointedly speaking to nobody but Cas. Well, good, Dean didn’t want to look at his face anyway. 

But just before he left, he glanced at Dean and said, “I believe a visit to my good friend is long overdue. Perhaps I will settle by him and his family’s side, to ensure this does not happen again.” 

Cas nodded. “Good luck on your journey.” 

“And to you, brother.” 

They watched as he disappeared into the woods. As soon as he was completely out of sight, Cas turned and asked, “What happened while I was gone?” 

Dean scoffed. “Nothing.” 

Cas’s gaze roamed over Dean for an answer, but he seemed to shrug off the curiosity at not being able to find anything too suspicious. Dean relaxed in relief. He doubted Cas would take it well if he found out he’d threatened his brother’s crush to death. 

Alfie was fine. He was mostly shaken up by Cas’s presence after the whole shebang, and the fact that “that man blew up the bridge, oh god my superior is going to kill me what do I _do_ and why is he so _powerful_ what even _is_ that magic is he sure he’s _human_ ”. Dean slung an arm over Alfie’s shoulders, and lowered his head to match his eye level. 

“Listen buddy, I know you’re freaking out, but uh…” Dean sighed as if defeated, and shook his head. “Look, I’m really not supposed to be telling you this but…” 

Alfie looked downright nervous. “What?” 

“This guy over here?” Dean jerked his head at Cas. “He’s actually on a mission from the King.” 

Cas held himself stiffly as Alfie reassessed him with new eyes. “Really?” he asked skeptically. 

“Yeah. I know it’s hard to believe—” he ignored Cas’s slightly offended narrowing of the eyes at him, “—but he’s actually the High Mage of our kingdom, Gabriel.” 

Alfie’s eyes widened. “Wow. Wow, okay, that—that explains a lot.” 

“Yeah. Bet you never saw the High Mage in flesh before.” 

“Yeah, I mean, he’s a lot… taller than what I’ve heard about him.” 

Dean covered his laugh with a cough. “Yeah, you know, rumours. Some nasty people trying to demean the High Mage into someone who’s a bit less intimidating, you know?” 

Alfie nodded as if he understood. “Yes, I understand. Is there any way I can assist you in your quest from the King?” 

“No, no,” Dean quickly replied. “I just need you to keep quiet about it and make sure to not tell anyone we passed through here, cuz, you know.” Dean made generic gestures with his hands. “Top secret mission.” 

“Of course. What should I do about the bridge?” he asked, a bit helpless. 

“Close it off for a bit. Say it was a… natural accident.” Which wasn’t, you know, too far off the truth. “And send all the bills for damage compensation under the High Mage.” 

“Right.” 

“Good. Okay. Glad we got that sorted out.” Dean smiled, and patted him on the back. “See you around, Alfie. You ain’t half bad.” 

“Have a safe trip, My Liege—oh, wait!” Alfie gripped onto Cas’s shirt. “Can I have an autograph from you, sir? My brother’s a huge fan.” He asked sheepishly.

After Cas attempted some sort of a scribble (and Dean trying to not give them away like an amateur by laughing at the completely unreadable autograph), Dean hurriedly dragged Cas away before Alfie could figure out the signature looked nothing like the actual Gabriel’s. 

They stood on the edge of the destroyed rubbles of the bridge, including the debris of the oil barrels that probably caused the explosion when it was hit with Cas’s fire during his earlier rampage. 

“Well, fuck,” Dean said, standing at the edge of the cliff but not far enough to actually feel the stomach lurching he got when he looked down from someplace high enough to break his neck and die. “We can’t go back either. What the fuck are we supposed to do now?” 

Cas wasn’t paying much attention, unclasping his necklace and taking his boots off. “Hold these,” he said, handing Dean both items. 

“Um,” Dean replied, dumbly staring at the necklace in his hand. “What are you doing?” 

A low rumbling shook the ground, and Dean snapped his head back up and looked around in alarm, only for his jaw to drop to the ground and when he found the source of the rumbling. 

Cas was… fully in his dragon form again (why didn’t he bother to take the rest of his clothes off, Dean didn’t know), and Dean had to admit, it was a lot more impressive when he could see him wholly instead of with terrible lighting. His wings were _massive_ as he stretched them into the air, and oh god, he forgot dragons had tails. Cas had a _tail_ for fuck’s sake. 

“Dude, _what_ are you doing?” Dean asked again, drinking in every single inch of Cas in his full glorious dragon self. He remembered being scared shitless by his form before, which was understandable since he didn’t even know the guy, but now—now he was just— 

 _Gorgeous_ , was how he’d describe him now. Being around his human form had Dean let his guard down, but seeing Cas like this again was… overwhelming. 

“I’ll fly us there.” Cas said, craning his neck to look at Dean’s tiny self, and there was a bit of a crackle behind his voice that Dean had never noticed before and— 

“Fuck no.” Dean said. “We are _not_ doing that.” 

“Dean,” he reasoned, and fuck him if it wasn’t working. 

Fuck. _Fuck_. 

It really wasn’t the time to be picky. He knew that. And it wasn’t as if he had any other way to get to the other side of the lake. Still, flying was… 

Seeing Dean’s hesitation, Cas furled his wings back and slumped down beside him, his tail curled around his body. “What’s the problem?” 

“Well.” Dean licked his lips. “My first flying experience wasn’t the best, for starters.” He tried to not look at Cas, but Cas was big and he was _everywhere_ and the way his scales reflected off the light was pretty awesome and gorgeous and _he_ was gorgeous and _fuck_ god fucking damn it, he needed to get a fucking grip. This quest wasn’t just about _him_ — 

Cas looked t him, pierced into him with those big blue eyes like he did when he looked human, and Dean wanted to look away because it felt like Cas was unravelling everything about him. He hated the feeling, but at the same time he wished it was exactly what Cas was doing so he didn’t have to explain it himself. 

“You’re scared.” 

Dean hesitated in his answer. “It’s just not _natural_ , man. Humans are supposed to stay on the ground. It’s like going against the natural order.” 

“Natural order wasn’t something I realized humans took into account.” Cas replied dryly. 

“Shut up.” 

Cas snorted, and lowered himself further onto the ground, enough for Dean to climb up if he wanted to. “Dean.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Trust me.” 

And just like that, his mind was made up. Dean exhaled shakily, and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” 

He climbed up on Cas—consciously making an effort to be light on his footsteps in case he hurt him because you know, enormous dragon couldn’t take on the weight of one tiny human—and held onto Cas’s neck for his dear life, placing himself right between where Cas’s shoulders and wings coincided. Cas started flapping his wings, and Dean thought his eardrums were going to burst at the sound of it alone. He could feel the rising off the ground, and along with it came the lurching in his guts, and he hoped he wasn’t hurting Cas too much with his deathly grip. With his eyes closed, Dean kinda felt like he was hugging a medium-sized tree instead.

 

 

Cas was warm, like hugging a miniature stove except he wasn’t getting a third-degree burn from it. Dean’s eyes were shut tight, and he wanted to puke just knowing that they were completely in the air by now. Cas was a bumpy ride with the way his wings kept _moving_ and already Dean wanted off. He held on tighter, trying to not think of how vulnerable they were in midair and how Cas could spin around right now and Dean would fall off to his demise and it would be the perfect opportunity for him to disappear to the bottom of the lake without anyone else knowing— 

“Dean.” 

“What?” Dean yelled back. 

“Open your eyes.” 

“No fucking way,” Dean barely gritted out, but Cas still somehow heard him (probably with his super dragon hearing, Dean didn’t fucking know). 

“Dean.” 

“ _Cas_. Why the fuck would I want to do that?” 

Cas didn’t say anything, and Dean hoped he gave up on it by some higher power’s will, but of course Dean wasn’t that lucky. “I believe you would appreciate the view.” 

“You want me to risk my life—” Dean yelped as a particular harsh flapping-bump almost made him go flying himself, “—for _scenery_?” 

“I… I’d like for you to see what I see.” Cas said, his words almost lost in the wind. “You will be safe. I swear on it.” 

“Weren’t dragons supposed to not make light oaths?” 

“Then you know it’s not a light one I make.” 

Dean was so fucking scared, he really _really_ was, but how could a guy say no to that? Dean opened his eyes, a tiny little peak because squinting somehow made it feel safer, and his eyes flew open, a gasp stolen out of his lungs at the sight.

The lake was… was _beautiful_ , with the way it reflected the sunlight and sparkled like it was nobody’s business, and the tiny clusters of islands painted a landscape no human was blessed with. The blue sky seemed to meld into one with the lake, the thin horizon and the clouds the only indicator of them as two separate entities. 

“Holy shit.” Dean breathed. The wind felt pleasant instead of stinging his cheeks now that he was used to it, and the air smelt of the summer with the open water and the faint scent of soil. 

“Better?” Cas asked, a little smirk attached to the voice. 

“Yeah,” Dean replied sincerely, hugging Cas a little tighter as his cheek rubbed against his scales, and the lurching in his guts and the uncomfortable buzzing underneath his skin forgotten. “Yeah. Thanks, Cas.” 

Cas stared at him, momentarily frozen, and Dean frowned. “What?” Dean asked.

Cas seemed to shake himself out of it. “Nothing,” he replied, and regarded him for few seconds more before he turned away to keep on flying.


	5. In Which Dean Practices Impolite Manners

They reached the shore of the other side of the main land just as thunders rolled and soon enough,  it started pouring. Dean quickly threw Cas his spare clothes (thank gods, because the clothes he picked out from earlier were honestly atrocious, and he was just glad they were ripped to shreds when he transformed earlier) and they ran into the woods to avoid the midsummer downpour.

“Are we lost?” Cas asked after half an hour, soaked to his bones. 

“What? No. I know where we’re going,” Dean said with as much confidence as he could muster up. He was _pretty_ sure they weren’t lost. They were on a path, and paths were bound to take them somewhere—probably a town or some type of civilization, right? 

Cas hummed with narrow eyes, but he seemed to relax when they spotted smoke in between the trees (and Dean was too). They ran towards the direction and came across a small wooden cabin with a meadow of flowerbeds at the front. 

They ran to the door, avoiding as much rain as they could, and Dean reached up to knock on the door when the door swung open and Dean was left hanging with his hand awkwardly up in the air. 

“I’ve been expecting you boys,” the woman said cheerfully, holding out the door for them. They blinked up at her, and she scoffed. “Well? C’mon, then! You’re soaking to the bones!” 

“Um,” Dean started as they entered the little cabin. “I’m—” 

“Dean. I know.” She smiled. “And you’re Castiel.” 

Cas’s eyes widened. “How do you—” 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little creep up his skin. Out of all possible situations, he wasn’t expecting some freaky know-it-all lady— 

“Ow!” Dean cried as the lady smacked him lightly on the back of his head. “What was that for?” 

“Don’t you call me freaky like that, Dean Winchester. I don’t care if you’re royalty,” she scorned. “It’s bad manner.” 

 “I didn’t call you freaky!” Dean sputtered. Cas stared at him with a frown, probably confused on how Dean managed to say something while bypassing his super hearing or something. 

“No, but you were thinkin’ it. Leave your boots there. Don’t you think you can leave mud all over my nice carpet.” She grumbled and walked away, leaving Dean and Cas both dumbfounded. 

“Oh, is she going on about her carpet again?” someone else poked her head in, and grinned at what she saw. “My, my.” 

“What is this place?” Cas asked Dean quietly as they took their boots off, as if accusing him of dragging them into some hellhole. 

“Dude, I don’t know but I want out as soon as we can. I’ll risk the chance of getting pneumonia over staying here—” 

“Quit your whispering and get over here.” The first lady’s voice said from around the corner. Dean and Cas carried themselves stiffly to what seemed like the living room, and they hesitantly sat down in front of the two ladies. 

“I know you have a lot of questions, but for now, introduction,” The lady who smacked Dean said. “I’m Missouri. This is—” 

“Pamela.” The other lady grinned. “Nice to meet you both.” 

“How the hell did you know our names?” Dean asked. 

Missouri and Pamela glanced at each other. 

“You’re psychic.” Cas piqued up. 

Dean barely picked up his jaw from dropping onto the floor. “Psychic?” he repeated, looking at Missouri with new eyes. He couldn’t believe out of all the people, it was some fucking mind reading freak’s house they came across when the last thing Dean needed was someone intruding in on his past like that— 

“You stop that.” Missouri said harshly at the same time as Pamela said, “Uh, no sweetheart, that’s a common stereotype on us folks.” 

“Well, what do you call what you’re exactly doing right now?” Dean blurted out angrily, and looked at Pamela accusingly. “You’re psychic too?” 

Pamela shrugged. “It’s not something we can turn off.” 

“That’s just fucking great,” Dean muttered angrily, the goosebumps all over his arms. Cas looked around the room in confusion, but didn’t ask. “Right. Well. Thanks for the shelter and all, but I think we’ll be heading out.” 

“We’re trying to help you, Dean,” Missouri said, getting up from her chair. 

Dean smiled thinly. “Thanks, but no thanks. C’mon, Cas—” 

“You’re looking for a guide through the Forest of Misdirection, right?” said Pamela. “We know just the person.” 

Dean slowly turned on his heels. “How did you know that?” he asked calmly, not letting the panic claw out of his throat. 

“Psychic, Dean. It does mean I can read your mind, you know,” Pamela replied sweetly with a tight smile. “It happens to be that you found just the place for you. Missouri and I,” she nodded to Missouri, “we act as the checkpoint for travellers to meet up with the forest guides.” 

“Right.” 

“You don’t believe us, fine. But it’s not my problem you missed the sign posted right outside our door that says exactly what I just told you.” 

“Plus, if you don’t want our help and you keep acting rude like that, you can get out of my house back into the storm.” Missouri huffed. “I won’t tolerate that sort of behaviour under my roof.” 

Now that Dean wasn’t focused on the two women in front of him, he saw the pile of maps in one of the corners on top of a large wooden table as well as too many hiking canes for just two people. Guilt automatically overtook him for being so paranoid, but he shook it off quickly. 

“I’m sorry for being rude. It’s just—” Dean mumbled, thinking back to how Cas was almost falling asleep by his side after flying for the whole day without much rest except on few of the islands on the way here and there, thinking back to the whole deal with Gadreel and just… everything else they had to deal with over the course of the last few days. It was dark out, Cas was probably hungry, Dean was _starving_ , and it was pouring outside, and he doubted he could navigate through the woods at night in the storm. “It’s been a long day.” He finally concluded. 

Both women’s faces softened, and Dean mentally smacked himself. Psychics. Right. “It’s alright, sweetie,” Pamela said. 

“Just tone down a little on the brooding, and relax, for goodness’s sake,” Missouri said.  “Now, you boys wash up while I cook us some dinner.” 

Dinner was delicious (some kinda… meat pie with vegetable sides), but Dean couldn’t help but fidget the entire time knowing there were two mindreaders in the room with him. He kept thinking of things to distract himself so they couldn’t pick anything up until Missouri snapped from her seat, “Dean, you stop shuffling images like that before you get all of us motion sick, and eat your dinner, or I won’t hesitate to kick you out!” 

In the end, Dean kinda gave up trying. It wasn’t like they weren’t going to know one way or another, so he just stopped resisting it. Somehow, it made not thinking of necessarily important things a lot easier after he simply accepted the change. Still, it didn’t sit right with him that they knew what he was thinking. Cas seemed a lot more at ease than Dean was, and Dean asked how he was even doing that. 

Cas shrugged, accepting the cup of hot apple cider Missouri had handed Dean earlier. “If they were purposely intruding into my mind, I would know.” 

“But they’re not?” 

“They’re strong,” Cas admitted, shuffling over so Dean could join by his side on the porch, looking out into the dark of the forest. “They can pick up stray thoughts if you concentrate on that one thought too much, but otherwise, no. It seems they’re actively trying to respect our privacy.” 

Dean huffed. Well, that did make him feel a little better. 

Pamela had said that they’ve sent out a letter to the person that would be of help to Dean and Cas, and only when she were here were they going to discuss details. Whatever _that_ meant. Dean had tried to fight them on it, saying he was in a _bit_ of a hurry here. Missouri and Pamela looked at each other and tsked. 

“Be patient,” They had said, reassuring Dean that there wasn’t anybody else for the job, and that it would take several days for her to get here, whoever she happened to be, so they better stay around for few days as well. 

“Be patient,” Dean repeated now, into the echo of the night. “She better hurry her ass over here, whoever the fuck she is.” 

Cas frowned. “You seem unusually impatient. Not that you’re usually patient,” he added helpfully, “but more so than usual.” 

Dean smiled thinly. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” 

Dean had half a mind to explain that he was being sarcastic, but thought better. He sighed. “We’re too close but there’s nothing we can do right _now_ other than sit around and drink— fucking— _cider_.” 

Cas sipped on his cider. 

Dean threw his hands up in the air. “I just want to get this over with, okay? I just want to get out of this miserable forest and get back to my own bed and not have to worry about gathering enough wood to burn through the night or running out of food in the middle of nowhere or constantly worry about being shot on the back with nobody else to find my body.” 

Cas shook his head. “No.” 

“What do you mean, _no?”_

He was looking at him that way again, that penetrating all knowing look on his face. “At first I thought you were like those knights blinded by their quest and their… prize at the end, but you’re not that. You don’t care about the pride from completing the quest or the princess at all.” 

Dean took a sip of his cider at Cas’s words, dragging the moment out. This wasn’t just about doing what they told him to do because of some fucked up traditional bullshit, it was... “I’m trying to prove a point.” 

“About what, exactly?” 

Dean tapped on his mug, and watched the brown bit of the cider float on the top. He could hear the night crickets from the forest, the little droplets from the roof hitting against the ledge. He wondered why it was that he could still remember her so clearly after all these years—all Sam had was stories from John, and Dean sometimes secretly felt superior for having memories of his own about her. He could still feel the rumbles of the hooves on the ground, the way Mary’s golden hair looked in the sunlight as she took her helmet off after a jousting competition, the way half the crowds cheered and the other half booed whenever she was on, and how Dean never understood why they would yell profanities at her, why Mary always looked so grim when John greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. 

“My mom—” Dean cleared his throat, “—she was a knight of the kingdom.  Best one in the country, in fact. Her parents trained her since she was little.” 

Dean glanced at Cas’s schooled expression and sighed. “Naturally, as you might’ve guessed, that didn’t fly well with everyone, because a woman and a queen’s place is not the training ground but with her children, yada yada yada.”

Dean glanced back down at his hands and watched the way his knuckles shifted as he clenched and unclenched his hands. “When I was four, she got into a riding accident. Except, everyone knew it wasn’t an accident.” He smiled thinly. "I somehow always knew she hated it too. She only stuck around for her parents, and they basically got her killed. 

He felt sudden warmth against his left shoulder, and looked up to see Cas’s hand, his face screwed up with understanding. “I’m sorry, Dean.” 

Dean shook his head. “My dad went ballistic after that, trying to find out who did it. He did some really stupid shit and cut it close a few times. He managed to find out the hard way in the end, and I got the bastards executed for treason, for both accounts.” 

Dean leaned against the railing and felt the night breeze against his skin. He let out a snort as he recalled back to the whole council looking down at him and Sam under their noses. “After my dad was killed, it was just…” he shook his head again. “Chaos. People questioned my rights as the firstborn of a tyrant, saying Sam was more capable because he was the youngest, and the youngest of the family always succeeds, right?” he laughed, nothing but a hollow sound.  “That was a shitty year. But hey, they _are_ right in that Sam’s smart as hell.” 

“You’re smart too,” Cas pointed out. 

“Yeah well, not smart like Sam. You haven’t seen the kid.” Dean scratched his cheek. “Anyway, we both knew the people backing Sam up for the throne was only trying to sit him on it so they could be the ones behind Sam with all the actual power.” 

“They wanted Sam as their puppet king,” Cas clarified quietly. 

“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “Said I had to prove my worth to them somehow in order for them to accept me as king after the shit dad pulled, but it was mostly an excuse to kick me out of the kingdom while they’re trying to find legitimate loopholes to make Sam king and dethrone me. Or kill me. Whichever came first, I guess.” 

“So your plan is to do… what? Do exactly what they tell you?” 

Dean scoffed. “My _plan_ is to have no possible flaws on which they can latch onto like some mindless blooksuckers they are and eradicate them out of _my_ court.” 

Cas frowned. “So you’re… using the princess to secure your throne.” 

Dean’s lips quirked, devoid of humour. “Hey, never said I was the righteous hero type.” 

“No, I suppose you haven’t,” Cas replied stiffly, directing his gaze out into the forest. 

Dean fidgeted with the handle of his mug. He didn’t really want to know if Cas now thought he was a scumbag or whatever, but he was more so worried that he actually seemed to _care_ what Cas thought of him or not. Shit. This was such a dangerous line he was walking on, getting attached to the guy that was leading him to his potential bride, and for other reasons too. He glanced at Cas and cleared his throat to rid of the awkward silence that settled between them. “Don’t tell anyone else, but if circumstances were different, and if he wanted it, I’d gladly give up my place for Sam.” 

Cas seemed glad for the change of subject as much as Dean was. “Why do you say that?”

Dean shrugged. “You know. He’s an ambitious kid. Always trying to find new ways to help people in his own way.  Smart as hell like I said, and a solid magic user, whereas I’ve never bothered with the hocus pocus crap. Besides, I think he’d be better, um... _Suited_. Cares about people a lot and compassionate and stuff. He’d make a fucking awesome ruler.” 

“You’re compassionate.” 

Dean laughed, and the sound died off his throat when he realized Cas was serious. “You’re serious.” 

“Of course.” 

“Cas, I _just_ told you that I’m going to use someone else for my own benefit.” 

“Dean, the first thing you did when you saw me hurt was to treat my wound.” Cas stated. “Any other human would’ve fled or tried to kill me.” 

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, well, maybe cuz I’m not a dick.” 

Cas shook his head.  “You are good, despite what you tell yourself.” 

“Doesn’t excuse that I’ll still be doing what I need to do.” He mumbled, swatting thoughts of John and Gadreel out of his mind. 

“Perhaps.” Cas paused and let out a little sigh. “Circumstances may have thwarted you from acting out on it, but after travelling with you, I can say this much with confidence. You’re not a bad person.” 

“Gee, thanks, Cas. Way to know how to make a guy feel special,” Dean said, glad it was dark enough to hide his flush. He wondered if he’d still say that after he heard what Dean told Gadreel earlier. “Anyway. So, yeah. Sam. More suited to be king than I am.” 

Cas clearly heard the ‘drop the subject’. “So why don’t you give him the throne?” 

“Because it’s _dangerous_ , Cas.” Dean shook his head. “People think being king would be so great and all that jazz but I mean, look at me now. Barely the next heir and I’ve already got everyone save for a handful of people trying to kill me. Sam’s, you know, a kid.” He chuckled. “A giant kid, but a kid. He really loves what he does right now, experimenting with magic and being taught all the cool stuff. I’ll deal with paperwork and bullshit politicians any day if it means keeping that smile on his dopey face.” 

Cas’s eyes softened and Dean’s heart skipped a beat at the sight. He blamed it on the cider. “Of course, Dean.” 

They went back into the cabin to head to their rooms. As if responding to their thoughts (to be honest, they probably _were_ ), Pamela perked up from her couch with a smile. “Your room is upstairs, boys.” 

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Room? As in singular?” 

Pamela shrugged. “We figured you only need one room, right?” 

Dean could feel the flush spreading through his entire body. Why did this keep _happening_? Clearly someone up there hated him. “Does it at least have two beds?”

Both Missouri’s and Pamela’s eyebrows shot up in surprise to their foreheads at this. Dean’s whole face burned, and he refused to turn around to see what kind of expression Cas was wearing right now. He pointedly stared onwards until either of the two on the couch moved. Some psychic _they_ were if they couldn’t even— Dean and Cas weren’t— 

Missouri and Pamela shared a not so subtle glance with each other. Missouri spoke. “Well, we only have one room to give since Bela will be here in few days.” She said. “Unless either of you want to share with her.” 

“I don’t mind sharing with Dean,” Cas spoke up from behind him, and Dean couldn’t mask the betrayal evident on his face. Cas pointedly didn’t look at Dean’s way as he slowly said, “There’s no problem with me.” 

Everybody in the room was looking at Dean now. Dean sighed and scrubbed his face in distress. Sure, they’ve just shared some heart to heart moment or whatever the crap Sam called them, but that didn’t mean he should let himself have—Cas was probably going to leave after Dean was done with this and he really, _really_ shouldn’t get attached, not to mention he was already a bit far too gone— 

At the quirk of Missouri’s eyebrows, Dean quickly dispelled that thought a little too late. God, fucking _psychics_.  He shrugged a little in defeat, and Pamela shot him a smile. “Alright, then that settles it. G’night, boys.” 

“Good night, Pamela, Missouri,” Cas replied, nodding at both of them along with their names. 

“Actually,” Missouri perked up, “Can I have a quick word with you, Dean?” 

“What, me?” 

“You see anybody else in this room named Dean?” 

Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes since he figured that would earn him another smack on the head, to which Missouri nodded, “Smart man. Come along now.” 

Cas watched them curiously as they stalked off to the kitchen, and Dean stared at the back of Missouri’s head, preparing himself for whatever pep talk she was about to give him. It wasn’t hard to figure she probably read his thoughts on Cas, and was about to lecture him on that for whatever reason. 

“Well, you’re partly right but it ain’t about that.” Missouri said as she turned around to face him. “You can figure that one out for yourself.” 

“Is there seriously no way for you to turn that off? Or at least, for me to block it off from you somehow?” Dean urged with a grit. “I feel violated every time you read my thoughts.” 

“No can do. You’re just going to have to not think so loud,” she replied. “Now, what is the deal with you?” 

Dean blinked. “Excuse me?” 

“I understand that for whatever reason, you have one hell of a trust issue—” 

“Understatement.” Dean muttered. 

“Don’t interrupt me,” she said pointedly. “And at first I thought it was because we were strangers, but it’s not just that, is it? You try to treat Castiel over there the same way even though he’s done more than enough to prove he means no harm.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Missouri’s mouth turned into a grim line. “You’re trying to distance yourself on purpose. And fine, that’s your problem, but you go into the Forest with a mindset like that, and you’re going to get yourself and everyone else lost and killed.” 

“Okay. I’ll try not to get everyone killed, then,” Dean clipped. 

Missouri crossed her arms. “Don’t give me the attitude, Dean. I’m trying to _help_ you. Anyway, you know Cas is good at heart, and I _know_ you know he ain’t no more of a tool than your own brother is to you. No, don’t you deny it,” Missouri said quickly at the sight of Dean about to protest. “I know you want to keep on with that lie of yours, trying to convince yourself that you’re only with Cas because he’s useful, but we both know that ain’t true.” 

Dean stayed silent . She was psychic, so there wasn’t much point to denying what he’d been thinking of more and more as he spent more time with Cas. 

“You know what you got out there with him is good for you. So why’re you denying yourself of that?” 

Dean rubbed his nose. “I just... I don’t know, man. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“And why’s that?” 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Do we really have to talk about this? What’s it to you anyway?” 

“I’ve seen your type. Struggling to obtain something you don’t even want because of what everyone else says is best for you, when the _actual_ good thing is right in front of you,” Missouri said, and Dean couldn’t help but quirk his lips at the thought of some burly knight being lectured by her. “Yeah, I thought as much. I just want what’s best for you, Dean. You deserve that much, at least.” 

Dean cast his eyes down. “Right,” he mumbled. 

She sighed. “Dean...” 

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Dean repeated. 

“No, you think it’s a terrible idea,” Missouri replied. “Because you think for some reason, caring about another individual means those people trying to gain control of the throne will have an easier time.” 

“Well, it’s true.” 

Missouri’s eyes went soft, and Dean was so sick of being on the receiving end of that look. He wasn’t some wounded animal. “Sure your situation ain’t normal, I’ll give you that much, and certainly that could be the case if Cas was some normal civilian. But he ain’t somebody normal either. He’s a dragon, for gods’ sake! He can take care of himself, more so than you can take care of yourself in my opinion.” 

“Thanks.” 

“I’m serious, Dean,” Missouri said. “Pushing other people away ain’t gonna solve your problems, and it certainly ain’t gonna help when you isolate yourself from everybody else’s help.” 

“I know that,” Dean snapped. Like he needed preaching from someone else when he’d heard the same thing from Sam and Bobby, not to mention from himself.

“Then practice what you preach, Dean! If you really think he’s gonna up and leave you one day, you’re dead wrong!” 

“What, you reading the future now?”

Missouri scoffed. “ _You_ are as important to _him_ as _he_ is to _you_.”  

Dean groaned. “Missouri...” 

“You’re not allowed to lower your self-worth like that around me, understand?” Missouri poked him on the chest. “ _You_ are important. Let yourself have this one. You deserve happiness as much as the next person.  ” 

“I know,” Dean muttered. 

“That’s a lie and we both know it,” Missouri replied. “Now up to bed. I want to see you two up and early tomorrow.” 

Dean grumbled at the slap on the back, and went upstairs. When Dean entered the room, Cas flinched like a kid caught doing something they knew they weren’t supposed to be doing. 

…Okay? 

“You’re looking good,” Dean said, joining him. The mattress sunk with a squeak along with Cas’s sudden stiff posture, which was odd, but Dean didn’t think too much on it. “What’s up?” 

Cas fidgeted with the linen, his face carefully blank. “Nothing.” 

Missouri’s voice from before echoed at the back of his head. Dean cleared his throat. “Dude, you sure? I mean, I’m all open ears, man.” 

Cas straightened from where he sat, still not looking directly at Dean. “It must be the exhaustion from flying. It takes a lot of energy, and I just… need to rest for the night.” 

“Right,” Dean said flippantly. It seemed almost surreal that he used to suspect Cas might be a good liar. 

Cas nodded. “Yes.” 

“Alright. Well. Night, Cas.” 

Cas mumbled out a good night, and fell asleep almost instantly. Dean supposed the flying really did him in. Or maybe he was just that good at pretence. Dean didn’t know. 

All he knew was that when their backs touched slightly as Dean lied down, Cas deliberately shifted just then so they were far enough apart to be not touching. He was practically hanging off the edge of the bed, and Dean almost got up from his spot to demand what was going on before thinking better of it. 

Dean tossed and turned in the bed before he fell into a restless sleep.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Dean wiped a sweat off his brow and fanned himself. “This is complete bullshit.” 

Cas shrugged, and pegged another log with the axe. Dean gulped as he watched a drop of sweat ran down Cas’ bare back and disappeared down the pants. 

Dean gritted his teeth and ripped his eyes away, feeling way too hot. It was midday and the cicadas were chirping crazily, and Dean was sweaty as fuck because Missouri and Pamela figured they might as well work themselves while they stayed under their hospitality by chopping them firewood, and this was seriously complete _bullshit_. 

“You watch your language, boy.” Missouri said, coming out with a jug of something, hopefully something cold. 

Dean drained the cup she poured for him before she was done pouring a cup for Cas. He wiped another sweat off his brow and when he turned to look, he saw that Cas was already staring at him. Cas looked away quickly, and yeah, Dean wasn’t even going to touch on why Cas seemed so distant all of a sudden. 

Just then, Dean spotted a figure walking toward them from afar. A female figure approached them, and he supposed that was the infamous... 

“Bela,” Missouri called with a smile, and Bela smiled back. 

“Missouri. So good to see you again.” She kissed Missouri on the cheek. “Where’s Pamela?” 

“Inside making your favourite. Come on.” 

Dean cleared his throat. She cocked her head at them. “And this is?” 

“Dean Winchester,” Dean said. 

“Ah, our dashing protagonist.” Bela smiled, the same smile and yet completely different from the one given to Missouri. “Ad this is...?” 

“Hello.” Cas put his axe down and shook her hand. “Castiel.” 

“A pleasure to meet you both.” Bela scanned them. “Certainly a sight for sore eyes.”

Dean scowled. “So why should I trust you for this job?” 

Bela quirked her eyebrows and turned to Missouri. “I didn’t realize I’d be interviewed for the job.” When Dean looked on impassively, Bela delicately snorted. “I never asked you to trust me, Dean. All I ask for is my payment for a job well done, which I’ll be doing.” 

Dean blinked. “Payment?”

“After the hero—what’s the word you people call it— _rescue_ the princess, and you two ride away into the sunset in your horse carriage, I’ll be the first to gain access to the treasury.” 

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re a castle robber.” 

“And you’re all a bunch of kidnappers. What I do is honest work compared to what you people claim to do, wrapping yourselves with a flag of justice and deluding yourselves that what you do is a righteous act.” 

The tension between him and Bela could be cut with a knife, and neither backed down from glaring at each other. Missouri sighed by their side. 

Pamela poked her head out. “Are you all ready for lunch—what’s going on?” 

Dean dropped his axe to the ground and grumbled some noncommittal noises before he stomped back inside. Well, working with her was going to be a fucking treat. 

Lunch was Dean mostly trying to ignore Bela chatting about mundane stuff with Missouri and Pamela, who seemed well acquainted with both of them. She seemed at home, and Dean pressed down the tiny jealous prick in his chest at the sight. He wasn’t a kid, and he wasn’t about to become reminiscent of what he used to have with John and Mary in front of two psychics. 

After lunch and helping Missouri and Pamela clean up, Dean, Cas and Bela sat around the living room table to discuss their future plans. Cas was too still where he sat, and looked like he wanted to bolt off at any second. 

“What’s got your panties in a twist?” Dean asked, sitting beside him. 

Cas pointedly stared at the table. “Nothing.” 

Right. “Cas, c’mon. Talk to me.” 

Cas glanced at Dean for the first time during the conversation, and he seemed to hesitate about something. He inhaled and opened his mouth, only for Bela to enter the room just then with her maps. “Alright, let’s talk plans.” 

Dean scowled at her, and Bela frowned back in confusion. Cas straightened in his seat and gestured at the map she’d spread across the table. “Go on,” he said, pretending like that didn’t just happen. 

“So,” Bela pointed at a red squiggle on the map.  “The castle you want to go to is fortunately one I’ve helped many others get to, so I’m familiar with the route. Luckily for you, the princess is supposedly beautiful, if rumours are anything to go by.” 

Hopefully she’ll be up for a divorce right after he kicked Metatron to the curb. “We should be there before nightfall even if we take into any… complications on the way,” Bela said. 

“Complications?” 

“The Forest of Misdirection is named that for a reason,” Bela replied. “People who aren’t from around here are bound to get lost and never find their way out.” 

“Meaning?” 

She presented three white masks on top of the map. Whatever they were for, they didn’t look reliable at all, with how weak the flimsy material looked. 

“Masks,” Cas stated, picking one up delicately as if they were the wonders of the world. “Of course.” 

“Oh? Are you familiar around this area?” Bela asked. 

Cas rubbed his chin, carefully placing the mask back on the table. “No, I… have an acquaintance who lives around here. I’ve heard stories from her about the Forest.” 

Right. Of course Dean was the only one who was completely out of the loop again. “Well, I’m not, so one of you mind explaining what’s going on?” 

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed on the way here,” Bela crossed her legs, “but we’re actually on the very edge of the Forest of Misdirection right now. It’s not enough to be deadly, but the pollen from the main Forest is enough to confuse most travellers on the way to this cabin.” 

“Pollen?” 

“It messes with the folks’ brains,” Pamela said, leaning against the doorframe. “Why do you think we’re the only ones living all the way out here, honey? It certainly ain’t ‘cause we like it.” 

“That’s a half-faced lie,” Bela said with a quirk. “You two love the privacy here. This whole business is your excuse.” 

Missouri let out a loud laugh from behind Pamela, and Pamela snickered. “Anyway. If you thought you seeing the smoke from this cabin when you were as lost as a sinner was a coincidence, I’ve got news for ya.” 

Dean straightened. “You led us here.” 

“Damn right we did.” Missouri said confidently. “Like we said, we want to help, Dean. The pollen effect might be weak around here, but you could’ve still roamed around the forest until you both ended up dead.” 

“It helps that we’re psychic, and we can usually pick up when someone’s around the area,” Pamela supplied.  “So imagine what it’ll be like in _there_. That’s when those come into play.” 

Dean gingerly picked up one of the masks. “And this is really enough to block out the pollens?” 

“Long enough to reach the castle.” 

“That’s reassuring.” 

Bela smiled thinly, and Dean returned the smile. “I’m all you’ve got, Dean.” 

They headed out right after lunch. Missouri packed them ham sandwiches and water bottles in Dean’s bag, and Bela kissed Pamela and Missouri on the cheek before they left. 

Bela made sure the masks were on securely before they entered the Forest. “Just make sure you’re following the white rectangles painted onto the trees.” 

Dean eyed the markings and took note. “How’d you get into doing this anyway?” he asked at her back, easily nagivating through the winding paths. 

“It’s good business.” 

Dean snorted and immediately regretted the decision. Fuck, he hated this mask already. He could barely breathe on top of being short of breath from hiking through the woods, whereas Bela and Cas seemed to be having no problems at all. “Hey, you sure my mask is on right?” 

“Of course it is. I—Dean, _no_!” 

The warning came too late as Dean tugged on the mask and breathed in a lungful of unfiltered air. He waited for some kind of instant death, but nothing came. “What? I’m fine.” 

“You _idiot_ ,” she hissed, stomping over him. “We need to get out, _now_.” 

“What? No, I’m seriously fine—” 

“Give it few minutes, and then we’ll talk,” she said firmly, trying to tug Dean away into the opposite direction. “We need to go back and get you a new mask.” 

“I told you, I’m _fine_. Let’s just get going. I don’t have all the time in the world.” 

“Dean, I’ve done this tour a hundred times. Both sides of your mask are contaminated now, and we can’t cross the Forest without it to act as a filter. I’ve seen people fall to their deaths here because they didn’t listen to me and tried to go on.” 

“But I feel fine,” Dean said, rubbing his eyes. Things were getting blurry around the edges. 

“No, you’re really not, Dean,” said Bela’s voice, sounding too far off for someone who was standing right in front of him. “Can’t you feel that you resisting is also part of the pollen acting up? We’re only halfway there, and it shouldn’t take us longer than it took us to get here to turn around.” 

Dean’s tongue felt thick, and he ground his palms into his eyes. It was still midday the last few times he blinked, but the sunlight was getting dimmer and dimmer every passing second. He swatted at the hands that tried to grab at him. He could barely see anything now, and panic flared up in him at the loss of sight. He blindly fumbled for his sword to no avail and he needed to get _out_ of here— 

“Dean.” 

Dean stopped completely, the sound of his own ragged breath harsh. “Cas?” 

“Yes.” Something warm gently pressed against his nose and mouth—probably Cas’s hand. 

“I can’t see,” Dean said helplessly. “I can’t see you.” 

A murmur came from beside him, and he tensed up at the unfamiliar, distorted voice, but he felt something wrap around his waist, squeezing him a little. “Dean.” 

Dean relaxed against the touch. “Cas.” 

“Bela informs it’s not permanent, and it should clear up when we’re away enough from the higher concentrated grounds. Can you breathe?” 

Dean nodded. It was a bit difficult to breathe with Cas’s hand there, but it was manageable. The thing wrapping around him—logically Cas’s arm—nudged him forward, and Dean gripped onto Cas’s arm for—for balance. He focused on the sound of Cas’s breath and the way it tickled his ear, Cas’s warmth protectively wrapped up around him, and the way the smell of Cas’s sweat mixed with the smell of fresh soil and greens of the forest. He could hear Bela ahead of them, and being blind was weird in that Dean could differentiate between Bela’s quieter footsteps and Cas’s nonchalant ones, not caring about the branches loudly snapping underneath his boots as usual. 

The warmth of Cas’s arm around Dean’s waist weirded him out—maybe it was his temporary loss of sight, but he could do nothing but helplessly hyper-focus on the way Cas’s fingers held onto Dean’s cheeks, or anytime his fingers on Dean’s side twitched, or the softness of Cas’s ( _Dean’s_ ) shirt. Dean briefly wondered what it’d be like to lick Cas’s palm, or possibly even kiss it, but that was a really weird thought so he shook it off. 

Cas repeated Dean’s name, always waiting for Dean to say his name back every time. Dean wasn’t sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but he had somewhat of a suspicion that Bela had told him to keep him talking, and this was Cas’s way of keeping Dean conscious. The distinctive fuzziness around his thoughts was starting to leave him, and Dean had his eyes closed since he couldn’t see at the moment anyway, but the light gradually shone through his eyelids again. 

This wasn’t the way they were supposed to be. Dean was supposed to be using Cas as his tool, and Cas was supposed to be using him for fuck knew what, but this felt… intimate. It felt _too_ intimate, and Dean didn’t want any part of it because he was too close from greeting his future bride face to face, and nothing good would come out of letting this—whatever—continue. Missouri didn’t know what she was talking about—it wasn’t like she’d ever been a king before, and it was easy for her to say _let yourself be happy, do what you want_ since she wasn’t the one dealing with all the responsibilities that came out of being king. 

Cas’s hand that was acting as Dean’s mask left him then, his fingers brushing lightly against Dean’s neck before it was gone. Dean fluttered his eyes open just in time to watch Cas slip his mask off. They were a lot closer than Dean had realized, and if he leaned a little further, he could actually probably touch Cas’s lips with his own— 

Bela cleared her throat, causing both of them to jump. “You can let go of him now,” she pointed out, and  Cas uncurled his arm from Dean’s waist, his touch lingering a little too long before it was gone. 

Dean rubbed at his eyes. Relief at being able to see again would be an understatement. That was fucking terrifying, but at least he got to stay close to Cas for a little longer, which was nice.  

Which was probably something he should never, ever think about again, if he wanted to see this quest through. 

“If it wasn’t for Cas’s quick thinking, you could’ve really lost yourself in there, Dean,” Bela chastised, and Dean grimaced. 

He glanced at Cas and tentatively shot him a smile. Casually, casually. “Thanks for saving my bacon, Cas,” he muttered, refusing to look at either of them. He felt like a fucking kid. 

“Now that we’re out of the enchanted part of the Forest, the castle should be a short walk from here,” Bela said, leading the way again. Dean didn’t miss the way Cas stiffened at the statement. He also didn’t miss the way Cas almost completely walked into a tree, stumbling over few roots sticking out of the ground, and almost break his ankle at one point. It eventually got so bad that even Bela started to notice, which was when Dean decided to hold a little intervention. 

“Alright, Cas. What’s up?” 

Cas untangled himself from a branch and looked up at the accusation. “What?” 

“You’ve been empty-headed and jumpy ever since before we set out for the Forest. Not to mention, I’ve never seen you like this before. So, what’s up?” 

Cas stilled. “It’s nothing.” 

“It’s nothing my ass. C’mon, man. What’s up?” 

Cas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Dean. Focus on your quest instead.” 

“Focus on my…” Dean huffed, ignoring the way his stomach clenched. “Yeah, alright, man. You know, I thought we were actually friends enough to be able to talk about this crap instead of stewing in it, but guess that was a mistake on my part.” 

“Dean—” 

Dean turned away, pointedly ignoring Bela’s curious gaze. “Forget it, man. It’s whatever.” 

The awkward tension between them didn’t disappear, but Dean ignored it and ignored Cas in favour of observing the signs of an enchanted castle as they walked onwards. Dead plants here and there from the whatever overwhelming curse the castle was under, no signs of animals anywhere, the forest falling into some sort of deathly silence, all of which unnerved him.

“Well,” Bela declared, “here it is.” 

The castle itself was pretty big but most likely completely unoccupied save for the princess. There were vines clinging onto the crumbling walls, moss in between the bricks and some of the windows broken from what Dean could make out at their distance. The gate wasfirmly shut with no intention to let anyone in, or out. 

Oh, not to mention the thorny vines that covered the entire castle, coiled all the way across the dried out moat. 

“Great.” Dean muttered, eyeing the particularly sharp looking thorns. He wondered if they were poisonous. “Thanks for completely forgetting to mention the giant ass thorny plants, Cas. Real helpful.” 

Cas looked taken aback at the lashing, and Dean knew he was being difficult at this point, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. It was just easier this way. 

“Now what?” Dean asked, gesturing at the plant. 

“Don’t you have a fairy godmother or someone who could help you?” Bela asked. 

“For the last time, no, I don’t,” Dean gritted out. He pulled out his sword and experimentally slashed at the plant in hopes of cutting his way through. 

Instead, his sword broke in half. 

“Fuck. Benny’s going to kill me for this,” Dean said mournfully, staring at half of the blade shattered on the ground. 

“Too bad,” She said flippantly. “What about you, Castiel? Any bright ideas?”

“Yes. Stand aside.” 

Dean stepped back behind Cas immediately at his clipped, even tone. As soon as he did, Cas inhaled sharply and blew a giant flame, the flames turning the thorny bushes into smithereens. 

“What in the hell—” Bela muttered as she clutched at Cas’s shirt. 

The thorny bushes crumbled to the ground, merely a crumbly black pile of ashes as they flew all around the air. Dean watched in astonishment as their path was cleared to the gate. 

“Nice,” Dean grinned.“I knew I kept you around for something.” 

“Of course, Dean,” Cas said stiffly, and guilt instantly ate at Dean. Sure, he was being a dick, but things had to be better this way, right? It wasn’t like Dean kept thinking about Cas in a not so platonic way or anything, especially the way he looked with the white ashes falling down around them— 

Dean almost doubled over in pure sudden _pain_ that shot through his arm. “ _FUCK!_ ” he rubbed at the spot to see his arm was red and angry, burnt enough to blister over. “What the fu—” 

“Dean?” Cas called over Bela’s cursing in the background. 

Some of the fleck of ash touched more of Dean’s bare skin, and he howled in pain.  “Run!” Dean roared, and they raced to the gate, covering their faces as they ran to the gate. Bela was the fastest to the gate, and she pulled at the door handle to no avail.

 

 

“It’s—not working!” she yelled frantically, wincing every time the ashes touched her. Dean tried pulling on it as well, but it didn’t work. 

“Fucking— _ow_!” Dean nearly screamed in hysteria. It felt like they were stuck in a field full of wasps. 

Cas was last to arrive, and he _pushed_ into the gate, sending all three of them tumbling inwards. Dean slammed the gate shut with his foot before any more of the ashes touched him, Bela shielded behind him. 

They gathered their breaths, but none of them tried to get up from the floor. 

“Oh.” Bela breathed, sounding exhausted. “You had to push the door, not pull. Of course.” 

“The gate opens either way.” Cas replied, equally exhausted. “It can, however, refuse to open for you.” 

“I see.” Bela mumbled. Silence followed. 

“Cas.” 

“Yes?” 

“How the fuck did you know that?” 

Cas froze, and his eyes flew open to dart at Dean.  

Son of a bitch. 

Time seemed to move at miniscule speed as Dean and Cas stared at each other. Instead of jumping to his feet and storming out of the castle like anyone that had been lied to the entire time, Dean lay on the floor of the beat up castle and stared at Cas in disbelief and somewhat in denial. It wasn’t fair that life had given him someone he had actually befriended only to take it all away from him. 

“Dean, let me explain,” Cas started, but Dean just shook his head. He should’ve known better than to trust some dragon found in some cliff-cave-place. 

He should’ve known, but he still had the niggling at the back of his mind, whispering at him to just listen to his explanation, that maybe he’ll be able to excuse it. 

Before Cas could offer any sort of explanation however, footsteps were heard through the castle, and soon enough, there was someone standing just above Dean. Her mouth opened to a delicate ‘o’ as she spotted them, her blue eyes wide in surprise as she pulled her safety goggles off and strapping them against her head. 

“Who are you people?” she asked. 

Dean cleared his throat. Well, this was awkward. “I’m uh, Dean. Prince—King Dean Winchester. I’m here to rescue the princess?”


	6. In Which Dean Finally Gets Some Answers and Meets the Princess

“The princess?” she echoed. “How did you get in here?” 

Dean gingerly stood up, wincing in pain as the burns from earlier was blistering at an unnatural speed. He glanced at Cas, who looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole. “Look, how we got here doesn’t’ matter, right? Could you just tell me where the princess is, and I’ll get out of your way?” 

One of her eyebrows quirked up at the statement. “Right.” 

Dean flushed, and he swore he could hear Bela snicker behind him. He turned and glared at her, and she offered a sweet smile in return. This was borderline ridiculous, and Dean really wasn’t suited for this kind of thing. “So uh, do you know where she is or not?” 

She shrugged. “She’s not here,” she said with ease, and started walking away. 

Dean blinked and followed after her. “Whoa, whoa, wait. Hey. Hey!” 

She stopped and heaved a sigh, and turned to glare at him. “The princess is in another castle right now,” she said with a cold smile. “Someone already came and rescued her. You’ll have to go look for someone else to rescue for your little quest.”

Dean felt the breath caught in his throat. So not only was he lied to by the guy he considered a friend, he came all this way for nothing. He felt like the ground was crumbling beneath him. All that effort, for nothing. 

He could try to find another princess or a Damsel in Distress. Granted, a Damsel in Distress wouldn’t hold as much value to the council as rescuing a legitimate royalty, but maybe it was possible to find one that used to be royal but doesn’t know that she is one. One of those kicked-out-by-stepmother-at-young-age type who doesn’t know they’re royal until they’re rescued. Those were rarer, but certainly, if Dean looked hard enough—maybe he’ll be able to— 

“That’s enough, Anna,” said Cas’s voice from behind him, breaking Dean’s train of thought. 

Anna turned around in surprise. “Who—” 

Her face hardened as soon as recognition hit. Cas looked slightly miffed, and he glanced at Dean before he seemingly braced himself.  He steadily gazed at Anna, who stared back at him. The tension between the two was so thick, even Dean felt bad for whatever Cas had done that made him look so guilty. 

“Castiel.” 

“Yes,” he said stiffly. 

As if on cue, Anna’s expression twisted thunderously and she marched right up to Cas’s face before anybody else could react. “You come here in _my_ castle after _running_ out on me like that, and now you bring— _princes_ to rescue me, so you could what, finally have your _freedom_?” 

Cas looked unsettled. “Anna—”

Dean and Bela watched by the side as she accusingly poked Cas on the chest with every word. “You’re _selling_ _me out_? You—you _monster_ —” 

“Hey, hey, calm the hell down,” Dean stepped between Cas and Anna, effectively blocking Cas away from her. Anna glared between Dean and Cas, but she deflated a little. Dean took this as a good sign. “So, you’re the princess? Cuz sorry to say, but uh... You don’t look much like one.” 

“You don’t look like a prince,” She shot back. 

“I like her already,” Bela said to Cas, and Dean ignored her. 

“Fair point,” Dean gruffed. “So uh... I guess this is the part where I rescue you.” 

“No,” Anna replied. 

That was pretty expected by this point. “You do realize I just ran through a field of burning ashes of literal pain for you.” 

“I don’t need to be rescued,” Anna said defiantly, standing up a little taller. “And I certainly don’t need to be rescued by _you_.” 

“Hey, what’s wrong with me?” 

Anna bristled at this. “You princes and knights and all the rest of you think you’re so great, barging into another person’s life and thinking you can sweep me off my feet. I am not a _trophy_ for you to receive at the end of your quest along with a pat on your back. The things you do are anything but noble.” 

“Nevermind,” Bela said to Cas. “I think I love her.” 

“I’m not going to marry some _barbarians_ who think they have _any_ rights over what I should and shouldn’t do based on my ‘social standings’.” She hissed with air quotation marks, and the sight was like a stab to Dean’s heart. “I _hate_ you, and everything you stand for.” 

Well. Dean wasn’t really sure what he’d be facing when he arrived at what he travelled all the way here for, but this wasn’t it. “Alright, well, you and me,” Dean pointed at the room she came from, “we’re gonna have a talk.” 

“I have nothing to talk about with—” Anna paused, and frowned down at Dean’s arms. “Are you hurt?” 

“What? Oh, uh, don’t worry about—” 

She didn’t seem to be listening, her eyes roaming between Bela and Cas as well. “You’re _all_ hurt! Why didn’t you mention it earlier?” 

None of them had the heart to tell her it was because of her anger. “We’ll be fine. It’s a burn,” Dean assured. 

“Actually, I don’t think I’ll be fine,” Bela said. “If you have anything to treat it, I’d be a happy patient.” 

Anna crossed her arms. “Of course. Medicine is my expertise.” 

Ah, so she was the one to teach Cas about poison and crap. Who, by the way, Dean didn’t even want to think about right now. There was just too much going on, and they were being dragged into a room with a giant pot in the middle of it, and Anna brandished her tall drawers for clean bandages. 

She didn’t bother wrapping Cas up, because he was all healed by the time she’d found the bandages. She worked on Bela first, speaking in soft tones and small smiles that seemed completely unfair compared to how she’d been treating Dean. 

“So.” 

“So, what?” Anna asked, tightening the bandage a little too hard. Dean grimaced. 

“Look, I get your whole concern with doing what other people expect you to, and I agree with you, hundred percent. You’re right,” Dean shook his head. “I wouldn’t even be on this quest if it wasn’t for that.” 

Anna narrowed her eyes, her hands cautious.”What do you mean?”

Dean gave a brief summary about Dean and Sam’s current situations, and how Dean needed the marriage to secure his throne. He realized halfway through his explanation that he wasn’t so much as trying to get her to sympathize as he was doing a report to someone he knew wouldn’t care for either way. He wondered if he’d given up trying to bring Anna back with him before he even got here, and to be truly, completely, honest, he hoped she stuck to her principles. 

“So,” he concluded, “Long story short, I need to prove my worth so they don’t have a flaw they can latch onto when I become king. Not having rescued anybody in distress and achieving a Happy Ending is the only flaw I have.” 

Anna huffed, applying balm onto his burn. “That’s pretty presumptuous of you.” 

Dean shrugged. “What can I say? I’m pretty awesome.” 

“So...” 

“So...” 

Anna looked at Dean. “The answer is still a no, Dean.” 

“Right.” Dean said.

Anna smiled sympathetically. “I’m thankful of you being honest with me. I think you’re the first one to have ever done it around here. But… I’m not going to marry you on the principle that you’ll essentially be using my status for your kingdom.” 

“We could get a divorce after I’m done kicking all the assholes out,” Dean offered. 

Anna smiled and shook her head. “I may be the supporting character in your story, but I’m a main character in mine. I don’t want to live my life dictated by a role you and everybody else assigned to me.” 

Dean sighed, those words hitting him right where he felt the most guilt. He knew he was asking her to do something he’d been fighting against his entire life. He hadn’t really taken her feelings on the matter to be honest, figuring that she’d mindlessly go along with anything he asked her to do, like marrying some complete stranger that barged into her home so she could be used for his benefits. 

He hadn’t taken her into account at all, and assumed she’d go along with it. He was just like everyone else who had expected the same out of him. 

“Right.” Dean cleared his throat and got up from his chair. “Good talk.” 

“Oh, but please.” She said, getting up with him. “Feel free to stay around for a bit. It’s already late and I wouldn’t want you guys to travel back in the dark.” She smiled, and tentatively added, “It can get really lonely around here.” 

He quirked his eyebrows at Anna. “You sure about that? I could try to seduce you or something while I’m still here,” he said with no real passion. The ground felt like it was falling underneath him, and he didn’t even know what to tell everyone when he went back. 

Anna laughed in response. “Somehow I doubt you’d do that, Dean. Besides...” she hesitated. “Cas brought you here, and he still trusted you to talk to me.” She nodded to herself. “That’s good enough reason for me to trust you.” 

“Wasn’t he the one keeping you here?” Dean asked in surprise. 

Anna shook her head. “At first, maybe. He was also my only companion out here.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t know when he started keeping people out instead of keeping me in, to be honest.” 

Dean nodded. “Sounds like him.” 

Anna studied him thoughtfully. “How long have you travelled with him?” 

Dean shrugged. “A while.” 

She stared at him the way Dean had seen Cas stare at him, unwavering with the same blue eyes. He wondered if Cas had learned the behaviour from Anna or if it was the other way around. “What?” he finally asked. 

“You like him,” she stated. It wasn’t a question. 

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be so quick to say that right now.”

“No,” she drawled, having none of Dean’s feigning ignorance. “You _like_ him.” 

“What?” Dean laughed, the sound dying in his throat as he realized she was serious. “You’re serious.” 

“You should see the way you look at him,” Anna replied calmly. 

“I look at everyone like that.” 

Anna shook her head with a tiny smile. “Not unless you have a giant crush on everyone else.” 

“You don’t even know me,” Dean argued. 

“It’s not hard to figure out you guys have... a thing for each other.” Anna shrugged at Dean’s skeptical frown. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you later.” 

Dean scowled and waved it off. His future self could deal with that last statement. 

Bela and Anna slipped away together to another room to hang around afterwards, and Dean and Cas retired to their room. Cas was sitting on the edge of their bed, looking resigned to his fate. Dean should've suspected the moment Cas started acting up as they got closer and closer to the castle. Fuck.

“So,” Dean said coldly, as soon as the door shut behind him. “I was your delivery.” 

“Dean.” 

“This whole time. You lied to me this _whole_ time.” Dean scrubbed his face in distress. “Was _anything_ you said real?”

“Just—let me explain.” 

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. “Fine. Go on. Whatever.” 

“This castle used to be under my charge,” Cas said hurriedly, as if dawdling to explain would change Dean’s mind to listen. “My family have been guarding castles with locked away princesses, hoarding treasures or kidnapping damsels for generations. We must accept to fulfil at least one of the roles during our lifespan.” 

“You didn’t think to hoard treasures instead?” 

Cas scoffed. “I figured this role would be… shorter, but with Anna’s independence and my efficiency to take care of the knights, it went on for much longer than any of us expected. It was overwhelming at times, and Anna and I didn’t always get along. Then the knight with the powerful fairy godmother came along, and…” 

“And gave you the perfect excuse to get out of this place.” 

“It was cowardly,” Cas admitted. “I apologize for never telling you.” 

Dean felt like some child throwing a tntrum. It just pissed him off more, because it wasn’t like _he_ was the one that’d been lying about everything this whole time. He had every right to be angry, but he didn’t even know _why_ he was so angry. In theory, he understood entirely why Cas did what he did. He saw the chance and he took it, and it wasn’t as if he lied to harm Dean in any way. It was beneficial for both of them—Dean with the princess and Cas with his freedom—and both of them would’ve gotten their Happily Ever After in a sense and gone their respective merry ways.  

Dean knew that, and yet he was so _angry_ at him. Was it because he thought—for some fucked up, twisted reason—he believed for a split second that Cas actually stayed around because he _liked_ Dean or something? Because Missouri thought it was a hell of a good idea to tell Dean that Cas actually _cared_ about him, and not for a personal gain but just _because_? Was it because Dean was still the oblivious idiot after all he and Sam had gone through?

He felt cheated out of the whole deal since he didn't even really _get_ the princess. He knew he had no right to feel that way—Anna was her own agent and had no reason to accompany him and now, Cas didn’t have a reason to travel with him, and that thought possibly pissed him off more than anything else. 

“Well, look at you. You’re back exactly where you started.” Dean lashed out. 

“Yes,” Cas looked up. “But it’s not a decision I regret, Dean. Through it all, I met you.” 

Dean’s stomach leaped. “You don’t mean that.” 

Cas frowned. “Of course I mean that. I…” Cas fidgeted with his hands. “I realize it’s selfish to request this, but I’d like to continue travel with you until I’m not needed as your safeguard anymore, if that’s alright with you.” 

Dean blinked in astonishment. “You knew?” he asked, unable to deny the truth. 

Cas shrugged. “What other reason than your quest would you—a human—would want me—a dragon—around?” 

Dean fidgeted with guilt, and somewhere at the back of his brain, denial. Cas was right in that sense. It’d been barely what, three weeks since they had been travelling together and it was— ridiculous to think he was _in love_ with someone. That was just _weird_. Dean didn’t _do_ love, let alone fall in love with some stranger he’d met barely a month ago. 

Except he wasn’t a stranger anymore, was he? Cas was— _Cas_. “How about because you’re actually a really cool dude?” 

Cas blinked in surprise. 

“And sure, you can really stick out like a sore thumb, but you’re pretty fun to hang out with, man. Don’t sell yourself short,” Dean muttered. 

Cas looked astonished at the statement, but otherwise smiled softly in response. “I sense forgiveness in your tone.” 

“Shut up. Go to bed,” Dean said, slipping under the cover. “And stop looking so smug.” 

He heard a chuckle from the other side, and closed his eyes against the sound. Dean was really, really going to regret this.


	7. In Which Dean Brings Castiel Back Home

“Dean!” 

He was met with a hug from Sam, then from Bobby and Ellen and Jo. “Easy on the hugging. I’m fragile from the trip.” 

Cas hung around behind him, stoically staring at them. Sam, Bobby, Ellen and Jo stared at him somewhat with unease, and Dean huffed. Yeah, Cas had that kinda effect on people. “Guys, this is Castiel. I told you about him before. Cas, this is everybody.” 

“Hello,” Cas said, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Dean would’ve laughed if he was a little more malicious. 

“Cas. I’ve heard about you from Dean,” Sam said warmly, shaking his hand. “Thank you for looking after my brother.” 

Cas looked up at Sam, who grinned at him. “It was my pleasure, Sam,” he said seriously, and Sam quirked an eyebrow at this. 

“Alright, alright,” Dean dismissed. “C’mon. I’ll fill you guys in.” 

Dean told them about Anna and how Bela was accompanying her now, and how Cas wasn’t breaking any rules since he _was_ technically still guarding royalty. Jo muffled a little laugh at how Anna rejected Dean, and Sam looked mostly concerned. 

“Well, what are we going to do now?” Sam said, pretty upset at the turn out. 

“I could always not get married,” Dean said carefully, but nobody seemed to be listening. Of course. 

“We could hold a ball,” Ellen suggested, and some of the heads peaked up in interest. Dean groaned, already not liking the sound of it. “You know, where the king invites everybody in the kingdom and picks a suitable partner.” 

“No,” Dean declined. 

“Why not?” Sam asked. “C’mon, man, I’ll organize it and everything.” 

“What was the point of me going on that entire quest if we could’ve just held a ball for a partner?” Dean complained. 

“Well, holding a party solely to find someone to marry is kinda tacky if you ask me.” 

Dean whirled to see Gabe leaned against the doorway. “Hey Dean-o,” He grinned. “Heard you were back.” 

“Hey,” Dean said, glancing at Cas to introduce them, only to see him mildly panicked. “Cas?” 

“And who do we have here? A new face—” Gabe’s grin fell when he got a real good look at Cas, replaced by genuine glee. “Castiel?” 

“Wha—” 

“Little bro!” Gabe cheered, slinging his arm around Cas. “I haven’t seen you in about a millennia. What’re you doing here?” 

“Little bro?” Dean echoed. He genuinely wondered if the millennia thing was a joke or not. 

“Yeah, man. Believe it or not, I’ve got siblings too.” Gabe grinned, not detecting Cas’s faint panic as Dean’s head scrambled the pieces into place. 

“Like... blood brothers?” 

“Yep! From the same father.” 

It explained a hell of a lot, why Gabe was able to do magic nobody else in the country could, and why he was so powerful, not to mention how he was appointed the title of High Mage at such a young looking age. He exchanged a look between Sam and Bobby, who looked equally perplexed. 

Dean caught Cas’s desperate head shaking, and bit his tongue from saying anything. He couldn’t believe it. Gabe was a fucking _dragon_. 

Fuck. Whatever. There was more on his plate than this, and if Gabe wasn’t going to say anything, then neither will Dean. 

“Aaaanyway, as I was saying before.” Gabe turned to Dean, oblivious to his identity being revealed. “If you _only_ held the ball without any effort of your own to seek out a bride—” 

“Or a groom.” Dean muttered. 

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Or a groom, or a partner, or a whatever you wanna label it with that flaming bisexuality of yours. Point is, if you had done just the ball, it would’ve looked bad on you. No effort, and nobody likes that.” 

“Gabe, just get to the point,” Dean said tiredly. 

“But, since you came back home trotting feet like a rejected teenager, people are gonna flock at you the first chance they’ve got,” Gabe grinned. “You’ll be a popular king, Dean-o. I’m looking forward to it.” 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Of course.” 

“So... Ball is a go?” Sam asked carefully, looking from Dean to Gabe. 

Dean shrugged. It was response enough.

 

 

~*~

 

 

There was a buzz of activity in the castle now that they had something to look forward to, especially with Dean back in the castle. According to Sam, it was overall a pretty boring two months without him.

“Yeah, you can say that 'cause you weren’t being chased by a bunch of—” 

Sam coughed loudly. Dean rolled his eyes but didn’t finish the sentence. 

“What were you being chased by, You Highness?” one of the more brave, curious tailor apprentices asked. 

Dean grinned, eyeing Sam. “Bears. Lots and lots of bears in the woods, you know. And wolves, too.” 

“You don’t say,” Sam said dryly. 

“Oh, sure. Wendigos, at one point.” 

Dean told some stories from his travels, mostly exaggerated to make things more interesting than just standing there getting his measurements done for his suit for the upcoming ball. He left out most of the more intimate moments with Cas, since he figured being told the Royal Guest had once flung the King down a waterfall wouldn’t fly that well with everyone. Everybody in the room listened with interest, except for Sam who was a sore ass and didn’t stop rolling his eyes. 

“Your face is gonna get stuck like that.” Dean retorted, flexing his arm once they were done. 

“They’re going to make art of you fighting the bears. You realize that, right?” 

Dean blanched. “They wouldn’t.” 

Sam snorted, suppressing a laugh. “Dean, you’re king. Remember that stained glass one with dad and—” 

“And the vampire. Ah, fuck.” Dean rubbed his face and Sam broke into a full body-shaking laughter beside him. “Hey, shut up. You’re just jealous you don’t get an awesome painting of you fighting a bear off.” 

“Of course.” 

“And once we uncover all the shit underneath the cover we can just say it’s a metaphor. And, _and_ , I did _technically_ fight off wolves at one point.” 

“I don’t think dogs count as wolves,” Sam said. 

“Shut up. Speaking of, where is he?” 

Sam shrugged. “Last time I saw him, he was catching up with Gabriel.” 

“Ugh, that son of a bitch,” Dean muttered, walking towards the garden. Gabe took it with surprising grace when they accused him of faking his identity this whole time. He mostly laughed at how Cas was found out so easily. 

“Well, it does explain a lot.” 

“Yeah, like how he became the High Mage? I’m appointing you as my High Mage after—” 

“All the shit. Yeah, I heard you the first time Dean. Why not keep him as the High Mage?” 

“Dude, he’s a _dragon_! The title is supposed to be for a _human,_ or at least not things that can blow up a town at any moment. I heard from Cas that dragons can harness magic easier than humans or something, and that’s—that’s cheating!” Dean spluttered, pointing fingers at the air. 

“Yes, he’s a dragon. In your court, on your side, _voluntarily,_ ” Sam reasoned. “Who in their right mind would let that go?” 

“But it’s not fair for _you_ ,” Dean whined. 

“Dean, I’ll _always_ have your back, one way or another. As far as we know, the only thing keeping Gabriel here is his title—What?” 

Dean grinned. “You’ll always have my back, huh?” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dean. How is this news to you?” 

“Hey! It’s nice to hear it out loud once in a while. Especially after a hellish trip like the one I just took, because _somebody_ thought it was a good idea.” 

Sam huffed. “You met Cas.” 

Dean’s accusing finger drooped back down. “Yeah, that’s true.” 

“How did you guys end up becoming friends anyway? You’re not exactly...” 

“Friendly?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

“Asshole.” Dean bodychecked him lightly, and Sam laughed. “I don’t know, man. He’s just...” Dean thought back to the first night. He wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the exact moment he started letting his guard down, but... “He’s not the power hungry type, you know? Cas is just... Cas.” 

“That made sense.” 

“Shut up, man. It did in my head.” 

Sam stared at him thoughtfully. “You change when you’re around him.” 

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Sam gestured at all of Dean. “You… I don’t know. Become softer.” 

Dean laughed. “Don’t strain yourself, Sammy.” 

Sam scowled, but quickly reassessed his priorities in the conversation. “Why don’t you court him?” 

Dean stopped in his steps and stared at Sam. “Are you serious?” Dean demanded. 

“Well, why not?” 

“Because he’s a _dragon_ , Sam. Do you know how many loose strands we’re handing to the other guys if I—I mean—” Dean flushed at the mere thought of courting _Cas_. “He’s—You know.” 

“No, I really don’t.” Sam replied dryly. 

“I thought, I don’t know, Happy Endings were supposed to be achieved with certain requirements. I’m king and he’s a dragon. A _dragon_ , Sam, I can’t stress this enough,” Dean said. “And I don’t think technical arch nemeses getting married together is going to achieve a Happily Ever After.” 

“Everyone has a different definition of a Happy Ending, Dean. Maybe you can find yours with Cas. Just because he’s not a princess you rescued out of a tower doesn’t mean you guys can’t love each other.” 

Dean groaned. “That was so cheesy, holy crap.” 

“Stop trying to change the subject.” 

Dean let out a frustrated noise as he scrubbed his face. “I don’t wanna drag him into— _this_. It’s already enough with us.” 

“Dean,” Sam said sympathetically, and fucking hell, there was that lethal puppy face with the soft voice again. “If you have someone you can genuinely trust and love, you don’t need to look for that one person for your Happy Ending anymore, man.” 

“I—”

“And as you’ve said, he’s a dragon. You really think people would want to fight against that?” 

“If they find a way to, then yeah.” 

“But you’re not _not_ interested in Cas,” Sam pointed out. “Right?” 

Dean scrubbed at his face. “Sam, what is the point of having this ball if you want me to court Cas in the first place?” 

“Hey, setting is important,” Sam argued. 

“Yeah, whatever.” 

“ _Dean_.” 

“I’ll think about it,” Dean remarked flippantly, and Sam crossed his arms. “I said I’ll _think_ about it! For fuck’s sake.” 

Sam didn’t seem too happy with the answer, but dropped the subject. Cas did turn out to be with Gabe, and from afar even Dean could tell at how excited Cas seemed. If he was a bird, he would probably be puffing out his feathers out of excitement. 

Cas said something, and Gabe reached over to ruffle his hair, to which Cas responded by irritably slapping his hand away. Dean chuckled at the sight, and both turned at the sound. 

“Dean.” Cas said, standing up. “How did the fitting go?” 

“Terrible. I hate all of...” Dean gestured to the general area in front of him. “This. All this formalities is going to kill me.” 

“Aw, c’mon Dean-o. It ain’t so bad! You get to meet beautiful ladies, eat some good food...” Gabe singsonged, wearing a dopey smile. He looked over from Cas to Dean and winked fast enough only for him to see. “You know, the good stuff.” 

Sam snickered, and Dean rolled his eyes in irritation while Cas blinked at all of them and stared into a general direction with a confused frown. 

“Anyway, how are you going to pull this off?” Dean asked Sam. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You know.” Dean waved his hand a bit helplessly. “I’m not... Options, man.” 

“We’ll be inviting most likely everyone in the kingdom. Whether they come or not is their choice.” 

“Right. But I mean, who are you inviting?” Dean cleared his throat. “Unless you’re doing this the traditional way, which is kinda, you know.” 

“Problematic?” 

“I was gonna say stupid, but yeah that works too,” Dean coughed. “I mean, it’s not the matter of rescuing princesses anymore, right? The rules change when _I’m_ the one holding the ball to find my... spouse, or whatever. You know I don’t, um.” 

“Like I said, Dean,” Sam said, gently nodding with his eyebrows raised to his forehead like he was speaking to a child. “We’ll be inviting every _one_. Not just... ladies.” 

“Right. Yeah. Okay, whatever.” Dean waved Sam aside, not paying giving any attention to the wash of relief over his body. 

Gabe looked back between Dean and Sam, and clapped his hands way too loudly for it to have been a normal clap. “Right. Now that we got that issue over with,” he pointed at Sam. “Sammy boy, you’re with me.” 

Sam groaned. “Can’t I get out of the lessons while I’m planning this? I _am_ basically planning the entire thing.” 

“Nope! You don’t get to slack off.” Gabe grinned, and for a minute Dean loved him. “C’mon, Sammy. You don’t _actually_ want to skip today’s lesson! I get to teach you about the stuff mostly no other human know about.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” 

“Liiike, I can finally start bestowing you the wisdom that our dad used up most of his years researching.” Gabe smirked. 

At this Sam did perk up a little, but instantly toned down his excitement so as not to please Gabe too much. Dean snorted at Sam’s barely suppressed joy. “Yeah, okay. You two nerds go get your hard on for studying or whatever, and us cool kids will hang out here.” 

Dean was somewhat left stranded with Cas in the garden as they watched Gabe drag Sam away to the study. 

“It’s actually fascinating, my father’s study,” Cas said, twirling a clover around. “He found out every person who uses magic leaves a bit of themselves behind. He’s founded multiple spells to utilize the leftover residue.” 

Dean pulled a face. “That sounds so wrong on so many levels.” 

“It’s very useful. It’s even theoretically possible to track the original magic user if there is enough of it.” 

“Huh. So, magic footsteps.” 

Cas chuckled. “Essentially.” 

Dean glanced sideways and relaxed, not really knowing how else to fill the gap in the air now that the chatter had died down, but not really feeling the need to. He watched the clouds move in the clear blue sky, and he felt at peace. 

“Sam’s asked me to attend the ball as well,” he said. 

God damn it, Sam. “Yeah?” 

“Yes.” Cas twirled a little clover he’d picked off the ground. “Would it trouble you if I attended?” 

“Nah, man. You can do whatever you want.” 

“It’s a ball to pick out your spouse. If I attended, it would mean I would be one of the candidates,” Cas explained like Dean didn’t already know this. 

Well hey, perfect chance for Dean to tell him he’s in love with the guy. How convenient. “Dude, I invited Anna and Bela too. I know Sam officially titled it as let’s-find-Dean’s-partner-party or whatever, but it’s just his excuse to party it up around here. Friends are invited too.” 

“Oh.” Cas said stiffly. “I see.” 

“Yeah. Do you even have a suit, though?” 

“I’m sure you can arrange that for me,” he said, and Dean laughed. 

“Yeah, I suppose I can, huh? I’ll let Sam know. He’ll probably be able to introduce you to a tailor.” He nodded. “Alright, well. I’ll see you around, man.” 

“Goodbye, Dean.” 

Dean smiled slightly and waved him good bye, thinking of all the other nights when they shared a bed together. Thinking back now, he was kinda glad he wasn’t aware of… this then. He probably would’ve suffocated to no end. 

Thank gods for small miracles, he supposed.

 

 

~*~

 

The days went by a lot more quickly than any of them had expected. There were tons of confirmed attendees for the ball, which surprised nobody since they all knew how attractive Dean was. Still, Dean was pretty smug about it and gloated about it for days.

There was still no movement from Metatron’s front, and everyone was holding their breaths, but they also doubted he was going to do anything before the ball. Sam grew more and more agitated as the date came around borne out of worry for Dean’s safety, and Dean was pretty sure everyone was watching him closely to do the same, but honestly? Dean was okay. Dean was home and out of the neck of the woods, and Cas was always hanging out with him whenever Dean wasn’t busy making kingly decisions. Life wasn’t perfect but it was routine, and Dean liked routine sometimes. 

The actual day of the ball went by agonizingly slow. The closer to the hour it got, the more Dean realized he was expected to choose his spouse in front of _everyone_. Even worse, in front of _Cas_. That was probably something he should’ve thought through, but once the realization hit, it was too late to change anything. 

Dean sat on his throne stiffly as some guy to the side read off the paper to indicate the purpose of the ball, and once all the formalities were done and over with, people broke out onto the dance floor, all of them glancing at Dean’s way, hoping he’d notice them. Dean sat in his seat as he watched people dance, and slumped further into his seat. The new suit felt especially stiff, and Dean absently tugged at his tie. It was suffocating. 

This whole experience was suffocating. He supposed by the end of the night he should be picking someone to marry, but that was... It was so fucking irrational, is what it was, having to choose someone to marry right after he danced with them maybe two or three times (it was usually three; three always seemed like the choice for everybody in the past). 

He wondered if any of his ancestors truly loved their spouses, if love was even considered as a factor before they married. Maybe love at first sight really was a thing in the past, but he knew for a fact that at least one of the neighbouring country’s royal marriage was blown to a proportion to cover up an affair. 

The whole crowd was a dizzying sight, with the dresses and the music and decorations everywhere. Dena had to admit, Sam and Bobby did a good job organizing the whole thing, but if they actually expected him to pick someone out from the crowd after dancing with them maybe once or twice, they had another thing coming. 

“Your brother put great effort into this party.” 

Dean jumped, physically recoiling away from the voice. “For _fuck’s_ sake, Cas!” 

Cas didn’t give a fuck, of _course_ , because he was a fucking asshole. “You don’t seem entertained.” 

Dean quickly scanned Cas in a full suit. Well, fuck. At least he was an attractive asshole, and Dean could appreciate that. “I could’ve told you that.” 

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” 

Dean stared at Cas, who abashedly stared back. Dean shrugged. “I suppose.” 

“Now you can easily acquire a spouse to secure your throne.” Cas said. “Why do you look so unhappy?” 

Dean sharply inhaled, and held it until he was dizzy from not breathing. He sighed through his nose, his whole body heaving with the motion. “I guess I’m just a little bitter on the whole thing.” 

Cas frowned in confusion, but before he could ask his question, Anna found them by their seats. “Cas! Dean! It’s good to see you again.” She said earnestly, her cheeks bright red from dancing all night. 

“Hey Anna. Enjoying the party?” 

She grinned. “We’re having fun, yeah.” 

“How are things with Bela going?” 

Her face brightened at the mention of Bela’s name. “We’re doing well. I like to think so for people who don’t know what they’re doing.” 

Dean huffed. “Hey, better than what I can say about myself.” 

Anna laughed, and tugged at Cas’s hand. “Come dance, Cas!” 

Cas glanced at Dean and back to Anna, gently trying to pry her hand away. “I’ve never danced before, Anna. You know that.” 

“Besides, wouldn’t Bela be on your ass if you did?” Dean asked. 

Anna rolled her eyes. “It’s called friends dancing together. Have you heard of it, Your Highness? Besides, Bela doesn’t own me or anything. If I want to dance with my friend, I’ll dance with my friend. She understands my boundaries, and I understand hers.” She said proudly. 

“Healthy.” Dean remarked, trying to sound sarcastic but unable to at her genuine self. 

“I wouldn’t expect anything else. C’mon, Cas. Just one dance.” 

“I—” He glanced at Dean again, and Dean cracked a smile. 

“I can keep myself company, man. It’s fine.” 

Cas hesitantly nodded before being pulled into the dance floor, and Dean couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of Cas’s alertness compared to Anna’s carefree self. 

Before the next song started and Dean could watch them dance, Sam joined him by his side. “You do realize the whole point of this ball was to get _you_ to socialize with your future partner, right?” 

“I don’t want to dance with anyone.” Dean sulked. 

“Really, Dean? You’re going to act like a kid after all this?” 

“I don’t wanna hear that from someone with hair like yours.” 

Sam unconsciously reached for his hair and ran his fingers through it. Dean snorted. Fucking nerd. 

Just then, the music started and Dean spotted Cas and Anna dancing together near the corner of the room rather than within the crowd; probably so they could get some space for themselves seeing from the way they danced. They took turns twirling each other with grins plastered all over their faces. Dean gulped, a wave of affection washing over him at the sight, but he also felt like he was intruding on something private. 

“Who are you staring at?” Sam frowned, following Dean’s gaze. His eyebrows raised to his forehead when he realized who it was. “Why don’t you ask him to dance with you?” 

“What?” 

“Cas. Ask him to dance.” 

“Are you serious?” Dean demanded. 

“Well, why not?” 

“Sam, we talked about this.” 

“Yeah, and I’m telling you again. It’s going to be fine,” Sam soothed. “I’m the youngest, remember? Just... Ask him, alright? If he refuses, then that’s that. No loss, right?” 

“Yeah,” Dean snarked. “No loss except me creeping him out.” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Ask him.” 

“ _Okay_ , okay. Jeez.” Dean tapped Sam by his shoulder. Dean breathed through his nose and out his mouth. “Thanks, Sammy.” 

Sam huffed. “No problem, Dean.” 

Anna released Cas to go find Bela, and Dean watched as Cas walked back to them, flush from dancing. It surprised him, because he’d seen this guy walk for miles without losing a sweat. “Dancing tire you out?” 

“Anna can be very enthusiastic,” Cas replied, and took Dean’s glass of water by the table without asking for it. Everyone else around them seemed a little shocked at the intimate gesture, but Dean did nothing but smile. 

“Well, if you’re up for another round...” Dean fidgeted with his fingers for a bit before looking back up at Cas, who was regarding him with a slight cock to his head. Dean cleared his throat. “Dance with me.” 

Cas blinked. “Excuse me?” 

Dean swallowed down his fear. “Dance with me, Castiel.” 

At the use of his full name, Cas looked a little taken back, but after a slight hesitation he nodded and took Dean’s hand. With every nerves of his body thrumming from excitement at every step, Dean led Cas to the dance floor as everyone around them stared and pointed and whispered. 

“Okay, well, since I’m royalty, you’ll have to do a bit better than how you danced with Anna,” Dean said with a crooked grin, and he felt Cas instantly relax under his arms at the sight. 

Cas scowled. “I had fun. Isn’t that the point of dancing?” 

“Yeah, I suppose. Alright, I’ll take lead, okay? Just—Here.” Dean led Cas’s arms in positions and rested his own hand against the crook of Cas’s waist and his shoulder. “Don’t step on me,” He warned. 

“I’ll do my best,” Cas said seriously, and Dean laughed, feeling high from it. 

The next music started, and in that moment, Dean tuned everything out except for Cas. He smelled distinctively of Anna’s perfume, and he could hear Cas’s slight hitch of breath tickling against his ear and the way his hair slightly tickled against Dean’s cheek, the weight of Cas’s arms on and around him, Cas’s hand in his hand. It was so overwhelming yet so, so _right_ that Dean never wanted the dance to end. 

They breathed in synchronization, and Cas danced the way he did everything else—so seriously and giving it his all. It was a simple waltz, and they twirled around in their spots and more than once did Cas step on Dean’s feet _hard_ , like he had a vendetta against Dean or something, and they had to stop in the midst of dancing few times because Cas kept apologizing into Dean’s ears and it tickled and while the pain made him wince, Dean also couldn’t help but laugh at how clumsy and so concentrated Cas was at the task. 

When the dance was over, they separated and bowed at each other. Dean stepped on the urge to kiss the top of Cas’s hand, and instead led them out to the balcony for some air.

It was cool outside, and the balcony looked out into the forest. Dean closed the door behind him to give themselves a little privacy. 

Dean leaned against the pillar, looking out into the forest. “Thanks for sticking around to the end, Cas.” 

Cas leaned against the pillar in front of Dean and cocked his head to the side. He offered a faint smile, and Dean gulped at the sight. Maybe it was the way the light reflected against his tuff of hair, making it almost look auburn, or maybe the way his entire body seemed to give off an enigmatic vibe, or the way he simply held himself in place, content in the light with his eyes squinting to be able to see through the light. 

Maybe it was the fact that Cas was simply so _Cas_ that Dean swallowed down his nerves. “What are you gonna do now, Cas? After this, I mean. After I don’t need protection from Metatron anymore.” 

Cas looked away, into the direction of the forest. “I don’t know.” 

“I mean, you could always stay for a while until you figure out what you want to do next,” Dean offered quickly. Cas snapped his head back to stare at Dean, and he resisted the urge to look away. He licked his lips, and his eyes flickered all over the place, from Cas’s face to the ground back to Cas’s face.  

“You could always stay,” He said with reserve this time, more of a hush than anything else. “With me.” 

Cas’s eyes widened, his relaxed posture suddenly stiff with shock. A pit opened up in Dean’s stomach. “Look, it’s okay if you don’t want to stay. I—” 

Cas stalked over to Dean and Dean backed away in surprise, for some reason thinking he was about to punch him. “Hey, what—” 

“DEAN!” 

He felt the cold sting on his back before his brain could register what had just happened. He thought he heard something pierce through the air, and the sickening sound of something burning itself into his skin. _Shit,_ he thought as he felt unconsciousness cloaking him, _Sam is going to kill me for dying_. 

He could feel Cas’s hands on his shoulder, yelling at him about something. 

“Fuck,” Dean let out, his brain in a mush. “I didn’t even get to properly tell you I love you.” 

The hands that held him stiffened, and arms coiled around him tightly. Dean blearily watched the pendant dangle from his neck. He wanted to tell Cas to shut the hell up because gods damn did he have a loud fucking voice, and couldn’t he tell Dean was just shot in the back with some kinda magic? 

Magic in his back… He was shot with magic in his back— 

He snapped back into sudden clarity, and flailed around, trying to grope Cas’s arm. “Cas.” He mumbled out, the urgency making his blood pump. “ _Cas_.” 

“I swear, Dean Winchester, if you—” 

Cas sounded furious, and Dean would’ve been a little more worried at that tone being directed at him if he wasn’t close to being dead. “The residue,” he tried to say, only for it to come out as “Remurgurh.” 

“What?” 

“Residue,” he said with effort, “Magic residue.” 

Dean felt the poison taking its effect, his entire body going completely numb. 

He succumbed to the dark. 

Distantly, he thought he heard a roar.


	8. In Which They Live Happily Ever After in Their Own Way

The first thing he knew was that he was _freezing._ Whoever was in charge of the fireplaces around the place, they weren’t doing a very good job of it and Dean vowed to get them replaced (or at least trained right). The next thing he knew was that he was in a bed, which was unexpected. He was faced down on a pillow, but this wasn’t his room. This looked like one of the spare rooms by the training grounds. It felt like he’d been passed out for days, but who knew how long he’d actually been out.

He couldn’t crane his neck enough to see if anybody else was in the room with him, but he heard a steady breath by his feet. He shuffled and regretted it immediately at the pain shooting through him like a motherfucker, and the pained grunt he let out caught the attention of whoever it was in the room.

“Dean!” Sam scrambled from his seat, instantly by Dean’s side.

“Hey, Sammy.” Dean managed a grin before he buried his face back into the pillow to let out a pathetic whine. He tasted the faint metallic taste of blood as he bit down on his lips in pain. He felt Sam’s hand gripping his forearm tightly in comfort.

After the initial pain had gone, Dean surveyed the room to his best abilities and to his disappointment, didn’t see Cas. “Where’s Cas?” Dean asked.

Everybody in the room looked uncomfortable, and Dean suddenly felt like someone dumped a bucket of cold water over his head. “Where. Is. Cas?” he gritted out.

“He’s fine. We’ll talk about your friend another time,” Bobby gruffed. “Or are we just going to stand around with you untreated?”

“We’ve sent for the doctor right now," Ellen said.

“We were all worried sick about you, Your Highness,” Metatron’s voice said somewhere to his right.

Dean offered a smile. “Yeah, I bet.”

“Your Highness must be more careful in the future, or our entire kingdom could be in jeopardy,” Metatron said.

“Don’t worry, Metatron. Good old me won’t be kicking the bucket anytime soon.” Dean grinned. “Besides, if I do it’s not like you care that much, right? As long as Sammy is safe.”

“You jest, Your Highness.”

“Which is what you seem to think I’m doing,” Dean retorted dryly, and his words hung in the room with tension.

Just then, the doctor arrived, and Dean gripped the bedsheet tightly.

“I don’t need the doctor,” Dean said steadily.

“B-But Sire…” The doctor was a nervous man, fidgeting with his tools until he found something Dean didn’t even want to think about touching his skin. “You’ve been grazed by a charged enchantment. If we don’t neutralize your body soon, you could go into shock within the hour,” He argued, a slight tremble to his hands.

Dean sat up, albeit with effort, and surveyed the room. There was Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and Rufus in the room with him. No doubt there were guards at the front of the door, but he didn’t know who the guards were and whose commands they’d listen to if it came down to a choice between Dean and Metatron.

“Where’s my High Mage?” Dean asked aloud.

“He’s, uh…” Bobby and Sam exchanged a glance, and Dean was starting to get annoyed with these half-assed answers.

“I’m getting really annoyed with these half-assed answers,” he said. “Where. Is. My. High Mage?”

“He’s with Cas.” Jo spoke up, earning the glares of mostly everybody in the room. “What? Someone’s gotta tell him.”

“And where is Cas?” Dean asked, as patiently as he could.

Everybody shuffled in their feet. Dean was running out of patience.

“In the dungeon, Your Highness,” Metatron finally offered.

Dean blinked and turned to him. Metatron bored back with ease. “You locked him in the dungeon?”

Everybody looked sideways at Dean’s sharp tone, except for the doctor. “Sire, _please_ mind your temper. You shouldn’t be excited right now—”

“It was a necessary precaution. He almost burnt the entire village down.”

“Were there any casualties?”

“No,” Sam said quickly. “Gabriel and I um, took control of the situation before it got out of hand.”

“He’s still dangerous,” Metatron supplied helpfully. “He can’t control himself and caused havoc in our kingdom, and I believe he should be—”

To everybody’s surprise, Dean chuckled, and he winced at the unexpected laughter ripped out of him. Fuck, that fucking hurt.

“Let me get this straight,” Dean said slowly, making sure everybody understood where he was getting back. “You imprisoned an angry dragon. You imprisoned an angry _Cas._ And somehow you’re all here thinking you’ll be safe behind few metal bars?”

“He’s in shackles with engraved sigils.”

“And I suppose my High Mage is down there for company?” Dean said dryly. Nobody answered him. “Who’s guarding the door right now?”

“Victor, Your Highness,” Victor called out from beyond the door.

Victor. He trusted Victor. “Go to the dungeon and escort my guest—” he emphasized, a quick sharp glance at Metatron, “—to this room. Bring Gabe too. Ellen, Jo, go stand guard while Victor is getting Cas and Gabe.”

Recognizing a rare, actual order, everybody set their paces while Sam and Bobby looked at Dean with a little confusion. He sent what was hopefully a reassuring grin.

“Sire…” The doctor wringed his hands. “Let me treat you, _please._ You’re getting me anxious.”

“Dude, for fuck’s sake, I’m not gonna croak. It grazed me,” Dean snapped. “Give me a sec, would you?”

Metatron perked up. “Your Highness, he insists—”

“Am I the one with the crown on my head?” Dean said sharply in response. “Or not?”

Metatron bowed his head slightly in response, with a bit of a grumble. Dean scoffed at the display, and turned his eyes back to the door as footsteps and rattling that sounded like chains approached them.

Bobby cleared his throat. “You sure this is safe? I mean, he almost burnt half the village down...”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t know, man. I’ve known him for weeks and I’m still scared by him sometimes.”

Sam chuckled, and it died in his throat when he seemed to realize Dean wasn’t joking. Bobby grumbled, “Well, ain’t he a ball of sunshine.”

Everybody turned their sight to the door as it opened, revealing Victor, followed by Gabe looking more serious than ever. They moved to the side, revealing Cas still in shackles, and his hair wilder than Dean had ever seen it (also shirtless for some reason, but at least he had pants on this time). "Get those off of him, for fuck's sake. What are we, barbarians?"

"He was out of control," Metatron argued.

"He's my  _guest,"_ Dean replied with a glare. He looked over Cas as Gabe took the shackles off of him, relieved to see no visible injuries. Once he was sure of that, he realized Cas was doing the same thing.

“You’re all right,” Cas said, his whole stance visibly relaxing.

Dean felt a flush creep up his face, and grinned to mask it and the fact that the memories of him telling him he loved him was flooding in. “I’m fine, man. No need for a fuss.”

Cas’s eyes sharpened. “I was _worried,_ Dean. I thought you—”

“Yeah, Dean,” Gabe muttered beside him. “Your boytoy here almost burned the entire village down because he was _worried—”_

Cas tsked, his locked gaze with Dean not wavering for a second. “Nobody would inform me what’s happened to you. I thought you were dead.”

Dean could tell everybody else in the room were all staring at them, and he lowered his gaze to his hands. “Yeah, well, I’m fine. I don’t die easy, remember?”

“Of course,” Cas responded dryly.

“Was there a reason you called us in here, Dean-o?” Gabe asked, peeking out from behind Cas. “Surely it wasn’t just to flirt with Cassie here.”

Dean sent him an irritated glare, and turned back to the doctor. “You said the enchantment aimed at me was lethal.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“So if I was hit with it directly, I would be dead. Meaning, the person who shot the thing—”he looked at each person in the room in the eyes while saying so, his eyes finally locking with Metatron, “—aimed for treason.”

“Gabriel. You and Sam’s been learning few interesting things lately,” he commented without looking away from Metatron. “Tell the rest of the class about it, would you?”

Somewhere from his left, Gabe cleared his throat. “Well, not many humans know about it. In _fact,_ I only know about it because my dad used to look into this shit back when he was a, hm, well, a mage. He researched this shit all the time and I used to sneak into his study to read up on it cuz I’m precious like that. Anyway, when someone uses magic, they generally leave behind a bit of I guess what you could call, mm,  _personal touch_ to the target. It could last for days if it’s some powerful mojo, you know. I think the longest case I’ve seen was a week, back when I was but a tiny wee apprentice in the mountains, training with—”

Dean rolled his eyes with a sigh. “You ever hear of abbreviation? According to Doc here, I could be dead any minute now, so skip to the explaining bit, man.”

The doctor let out a little squeak. Gabe made an unsatisfied little grunt, and waved his hand in the air with nonchalance as he said, “They’re basically magical footprints, _Your Highness_.”

“Unique for everyone, right?” Dean stressed, ignoring Gabe’s sarcastic tone.

Gabe quirked his eyebrow, silently asking _where are you going with this, Dean-o?_ “Ye-es,” He dragged out.

“So if there was some way to extract this residue to examine it, we’d be able to identify whose magic it is, right?”

“There is a way to extract it. As a matter of fact, there’s a location spell you could do with the residue. But,” Gabe raised his finger to stop Dean. “It’s extremely painful. You could die in the process, and it’s never been needed before so there aren’t a lot of people who can do it.”

“But you can?”

Gabe glanced at Cas and back to Dean. “Should be able to. Me, and that kid over there could do it, probably.”

“Probably?”

Gabe shrugged. “Hey, I’ve never done this before, alright? I just understand the theory.”

Dean nodded. “Cool. Let’s do this, then.”

“Did you not hear him?” Sam snapped. “Dean, you could _die.”_

Dean gulped, rubbing his hand unconsciously. “Comes with the job, I suppose.”

Before Sam could interrupt, Metatron interceded. “Your Highness, this seems... highly implausible. Not only has the High Mage never done this and Your Highness could be seriously harmed, but we don’t even know what he speaks of really exists. Please, reconsider this for the sake of this country.”

Dean clenched his jaw and sneered. “For the sake of the country.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“For the sake of the country,” Dean drawled, “I think I should take it into my responsibilities to find out who my potential killer is, no?”

“But—”

“Gabriel,” Dean gestured. “Get on with it.”

Gabe looked at him hesitantly, and Dean resisted bolting out of the plan out of fear. He gulped as Gabe approached and laid his hand on Dean’s shoulder—

Gabe flinched back as soon as he came into contact and they both recoiled away from each other, both thrown against the wall as people shouted all around them. They hovered over Dean, crowding him and there were hands _everywhere_ and—

Dean roared out in frustration. “Give me a room to breathe here, for fuck’s sake!” he said, and the chatters died. He slumped his head against the wall. “What the fuck was that about?”

Gabe flexed from where he was, wincing as he brought up his scorched hand, still sizzling with smoke. Everybody else in the room gasped at the sight. “I think you might’ve been charged for too long.”

The doctor paled and got to healing Gabe right away. Gabe looked at Dean in the eye, not paying any attention to his own scorched hand like he got a paper cut instead. Then again, he’d seen how Cas and Gadreel were with injuries so that wasn’t that surprising.

“Dean, this is way too dangerous now. And that’s coming from _me,_ ya buckaroo. You really could die, not to mention goold ol’ me who has to suck up that residue off of ya.”

“Please, Dean,” Sam begged with those puppy eyes of his, and fucking damn it all. “We’ll find another way, alright? Just let it go.”

Dean clenched his fists. Fuck, _fuck._ They finally found a way to uncover the dirt on Metatron, and of course there was some sort of stupid problem in the way.

Dean sighed, scrubbing his face with his hand. He had to admit, his muscles were starting to ache pretty badly, like he was constantly being electrocuted with little bits of lightning as the intensity became more powerful over time.

“Fine,” Dean spat out softly, the fight leaving him. _“Fine._ Decharge me, or whatever the fuck you need to do.”

The relief of everyone in the room (for different reasons, Dean bet) was evident on their faces as their shoulders all slumped. The doctor seemed especially pleased that he was finally allowed to treat to his patient and rolled up his sleeves.

The doctor pulled out some obscure looking tool that looked vaguely terrifying, and pointed it at Dean. “Now, Sire, I’m going to contact you with this, and you should be decharged within an eyeblink.”

Dean waved it aside. “Go on.”

The doctor approached him with the metal tip and touched Dean. The machine crackled and a small explosion, and smoke blew out of it. The doctor blinked and hit the machine few times to no avail.

He licked his lips in desperation under everybody’s watch, and cleared his throat. “I suppose I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Your Highness, I’ll have to touch you and decharge you with my body as the medium if that’s alright with you—”

“You just saw what happened to that thing,” Gabe chirped in. “You’re definitely going to crook if you so much as touch Dean with your finger, Doc.”

“Are you tellin’ me we can’t do _anything_ for him right now?” Bobby said in outrage.

“I’m saying unless anybody wants to chance dying, we gotta come up with another way to decharge him without touching him.”

“I’ll do it.”

Everyone turned to Cas, who had said nothing through the whole exchange. Dean felt his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach.

Dean slowly shook his head. “You could die, Cas.”

Cas raised his eyebrows in turn. “So I should stand here and watch you die.”

Dean bit his lips. He felt strangely calm for someone who was reaching critical state. He could tell he would no longer be able to move even if he wanted to, because he could barely feel his muscles like his whole body went to sleep. “If that’s what it takes, then yeah. Dragging you into this mess isn’t really my M.O.”

“No,” Cas replied shortly.

Dean managed to huff despite the numbness that was taking over his entire body. Cas was one stubborn son of a bitch.

“Hate to tell ya, Cas,” Gabe said slowly. “But you’ve never done this before. Not to mention, you’re weaker than me.”

Cas looked at Dean, and Dean couldn’t do anything but to pathetically look back. “Perhaps the results will be different.”

Gabe’s lips thinned in irritation at being unable to refute. “Cas...”

“It’ll work,” Cas turned to Dean and walked over to him. He kneeled in front of him and he locked eyes with Dean. Dean’s throat clicked as Cas’s eyes never hovered. For a second he wondered if Cas was going to lean over and kiss him, but that was stupid. They were in front of everybody. 

“Dean,” Cas said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Trust me.”

Dean’s mouth was dry and he felt like he was floating in the air. “Okay.”

Cas hovered his right hand over Dean’s left shoulder, and as everyone watched, he gently touched Dean.

A jolt shot through Dean’s entire body and white flashes of pain passed through him at suddenly being able to feel _everything_ after some time of being completely numb. A scream ripped out of his throat as the constant pain became more and more intense, but it didn’t stop. He heard crackling all over the place, and his left ear felt warm as something trickled out of it.

His throat was raw, but he couldn’t stop screaming. It hurt, it _hurt so fucking much_ , and he didn’t know what Cas was doing but it hurt it hurt and he wanted it to stop and—

Everything came to a stop. He heard a vague _get the tracking spell_ and a _take him_ _away_ and his left shoulder was so _warm._

“Dean? Dean!” Gabe’s voice said, a little fuzzy. Dean groaned in response. _“Dean!”_

“Stop _shaking_ me.”

He felt him backtrack. Despite his body feeling like a giant piece of lead, he managed to crook his neck to see a red, angry blistering hand print on his shoulder.

“What the fuck,” Dean announced.

“You okay? You kinda passed out for a second there, kiddo,” Gabe said somewhere from above (which wasn’t something that happened often).

Dean managed few grunting sounds, and he heard Gabe’s huff in response. “What’s going on?” he slurred.

“Cas managed to get the residue out of you,” Gabe explained, healing the blisters off of Dean’s shoulder. “We dumped it into the tracking spell and it pointed at Metatron. Guess he got desperate and tried to kill you himself.”

Dean scrubbed his face and blinked a few times, taking in the whole of the room. It was mostly empty now, and he didn’t even remember passing out. “Where is he?”

“Ran away.” Gabe said cheerfully. “Or tried to, anyway. He went ten feet before everyone was on him. We locked him up for good, an since you two executed that ridiculous stunt in front of everyone, now the whole country knows he’s the one that tried to kill you.”

Dean slunk to the floor in relief.

“Uh, I don’t think this handprint is coming out, Dean,” Gabe said a little more seriously. “I can’t heal it.”

Dean craned his neck to look at the neatly burnt handprint on his shoulder and huffed. “Looks like he claimed my ass or something.”

“Kinky.”

“Shut up and help me up.”

Gabe slumped Dean’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him up easily. Gabe led him to the courtyard, which was where everyone else were. “Hey, Gabe.”

“What’s up?”

“How come you’re, you know. Here?”

Gabe frowned at the question. “What’s that gotta mean?”

“You know. You’re powerful. You could be doing anything else than be stuck in this court. So why’re you here?”

“Aw, you know I’d never leave your sorry ass.” Gabe said with affection, his cheeks round with a smile. “You and Sammy are too much fun.”

“We’re alone, you know. You can tell me.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “I thought you didn’t like talking about feelings and crap.”

Dean quirked his eyebrows. _“Is_ it about feelings?”

“Bah.” Gabe pursed his lips. “You humans always wanting reasons for everything.”

“I don’t think that’s a human-only thing.” Dean pointed out.

“Right. Well. I don’t know what to tell ya, kid,” Gabe replied cheerfully. “Humanity’s fun. That’s all the reason I need to be here, isn't it?”

Dean huffed. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

There was a group of people practically running back towards their direction, and Dean could tell Sam’s stupid floopy hair from twenty miles away. Gabe let Dean stand up by himself, and Dean straightened himself. He was exhausted, and he just wanted to go back to his bed and sleep for maybe 500 years. Why couldn’t he be one of those that got hit with a curse like that? Sure, he heard that one princess who was hit with it had to get years of physiotherapy after she woke up, but hey, it was sleeping for like, thousand years.

“You’re awake,” Sam said in relief.

“Yeah. Heard you took care of things.”

Sam hugged Dean tightly, and Dean froze in surprise. He snorted, and patted his back in comfort.

“Good to see you too, little brother.”

“Shut up.”

After they hugged it out, Dean turned to Cas, who was standing between Bobby and Jo. He suddenly felt a little shy at even looking at the guy, which was downright ridiculous because one, Dean Winchester didn’t do _shy,_ and two, this guy just saved his life by risking his life.

“Hey, Cas,” He said, his body somehow having drifted in front of him without noticing.

“Hello, Dean.”

“You saved my life.”

Cas shrugged, like _no biggie, I save lives every day_. Dean huffed. Pretentious asshole.

He was in love with him, counting every strand of hair he had sticking up. Dean was so far gone, it was kind of disconcerting.

“How’d you know it was going to work?” Dean probed, ignoring everybody else’s eyes on the two of them. “I almost burnt Gabe’s hand off when he just about grazed me, but look at you, walking and talking.”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“I…” Cas glanced to the floor and back to Dean, and he wondered what the hesitation was for. “You said you love me. Right after you were attacked.”

Dean flushed a bright red, taking care to not look at anyone else but Cas. “So?” he gritted out. Why’d he have to bring that up _now?_

“So, you’re someone in love who was dying, and there was a spell involved. I thought perhaps we met enough requirements for the Power of Love to come into play,” Cas explained. “The Power of Love is always rumoured to hold one of the greatest strength at the most dire situations, so I figured it would work.”

“But for that to happen, the thing usually has to be…” Dean gaped now, his words trailing off as Cas steadily stared back at him. “Reciprocated.”

“Yes.”

“So you—” Dean swallowed. “You love me.”

Cas's lips twitched in amusement. “Yes, Dean. I love you.”

Dean stared and stared and finally said aloud, “You _figured_ it would work?”

Cas shrugged, the motion almost a natural look on him now. “Desperate situation called for desperate measures.”

Dean quirked his eyebrows . “You come to my court, solve my problem, save my life, and now what, you planning on sweeping me off my feet?” he laid a hand on Cas’s forearm, a little touch. “A little too ambitious, don’t you think?”

“Executing judgement on Metatron was a group effort, and I do aim to impress,” Cas said, tugging Dean by his waist, and when did his hands get there? “Have I impressed you yet?”

Dean hummed. “I didn’t think you gave a shit about what other people thought.”

“Only when it comes to you, Dean Winchester.”

“Ah. Where’d you learn to be such a sweet talker, Cas?”

Cas frowned in confusion. “I don’t—”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. C’mere.”

Cas let himself be pulled by Dean’s insistent tug of his shirt and the next thing Dean knew, they were kissing, fucking _finally,_ ignoring the burst of voices all around them. Dean had Cas’s face caressed in his palm, and he rubbed Cas’s cheek gently with his thumb as they pulled away. Cas was smiling, and Dean could feel his grin straining his face muscles, but he really, really didn’t care at this point.

“What’re you going to do now?” Dean asked, their hands slotting together so naturally, like they’ve done this a thousand times before.

“I don’t know. Perhaps I can stay around until your kingdom is properly sorted out and offer you my hep.”

“That’d be good.” Dean nodded. “You’d be a big help.”

“You two are disgusting.” Gabe scoffed.

Dean and Cas paid him no attention, though. They didn’t bother answering either, as they shared another sweet, slow indulging kiss, and Dean could feel the smile on Cas’s lips as he kissed him, and he loved him.

All was well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(“Will you two ijdits stop sucking on each other’s faces for now and get back to work?” Bobby scolded. “This country ain’t stopping around for you two.”

“Damn it Bobby, don’t ever say that again. It's too weird coming from you.”

“You’ve been going at it for—”

“ _Stop_.”

“Fine.” Bobby grumbled. “C’mon, then. We still gotta figure out how to weed out the rest of Lucifer’s gang out of this court now that Metatron's been dealt with. Cutting off the head ain’t going to mean jack if another one takes over his place.”

“He’s got a point,” Sam said.

Dean grumbled under his breath, albeit with not a lot of enthusiasm, and tugged at Cas’s hand. “Let’s go, then.”

Cas nodded with a smile. “Alright.”)

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I was forced to resize the art pieces so they would fit the pdf files without enlarging the page, but please go check out the [art masterlist](http://hamburgergod.tumblr.com/post/100889578718/grandle-drawings-i-did-for-sallys-dcbb) for bigger, better quality art!! Grandle did a fantastic job, and there is one piece that isn't embedded in the fic, and I'd love for all of you to share the immense joy I felt when I saw them!!
> 
> My awesome beta wasn't able to beta the whole fic due to my own tardiness and time-constrained demands, so any mistakes after chapter 4 are purely mine and mine only.


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